Fuel subsidy removal: FG set to distribute 2, 000 buses to cushion effects on transportation

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NAN reports that Dr George Akume, Minister of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs,  made this known on Friday at the interactive he had with stakeholders of cooperative societies in Nigeria at his office in Abuja.

Akume explained that the initiative was a collaboration between his ministry, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and other agencies in the government.

He said the ministry took the decision to pass through the cooperative bodies to ensure the materialisation of the project, rather than giving out loans to individuals, which might delay quick execution of the project.

“Basically we do recognise the fact that when you give out loans to individuals, sometimes you have the difficulty of recovery, when cooperative is involved,  it becomes easier to manage the facility.

“The whole essence of the initiative is to ensure that our rural force have access to transportation facility, now that there is a slight adjustment of the price of fuel.

“We do recognise that some transport business men can  decide to take advantage of fuel increase over Nigerians.

“So when this is implemented, we believe the initiative will do quite a lot to stabilise the prices for the benefits of the people.

According to him, there is no way the country can promote development without transportation and this explained why President Muhammadu Buhari was working hard in area of road, rail and air transportation.