Few days to the Lagos state gubernatorial election, Lagos Starts Giving impounded cars back to owners.
Due to the cash crunch that has struck the nation as a result of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) Naira redesign policy, the Lagos State Government has started releasing impounded cars to their owners for free.
It may be remembered that three weeks ago, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu announced palliative measures to lessen the impact of the Naira redesign policy, which has caused a severe cash shortage in Nigeria.
The state government decided to release cars that were impounded for minor traffic infractions to their owners and waive the fines as part of a move to scale up the palliative measure.
Since last Saturday, the vehicles have been released to their owners; the process is still continuing.
In an interview on Tuesday, Dr. Frederic Oladeinde, the commissioner for transportation in Lagos, stated that the governor had extended the palliative measures by ensuring that cars impounded for minor traffic infractions were released to their owners with the fines waived.
“When you look at what the governor proposed, particularly during the time of the financial crisis, we have reduced public transportation fare by 50%,” claims Oladeinde. In order to lessen the suffering of our people, we have reduced the fare on all of the public transportation systems in Lagos that are supported by the Lagos State, including Lag Ride, by 50%.
“Aside from that, we’ve established food banks to divert attention from transportation.”
“We’re happy that APC has won at the national level. And we are beginning to see some of these policies being reversed. So we’re hoping that in a short time, life would return back to normal but in terms of public transport, I think we’ve reduced fare by 50%.”
“there are some people that committed offences during that period and we understand the fact that money wasn’t easy to come by. Looking at the governor’s magnanimity, the governor has deemed it fit to ensure that people who committed crimes within that period and wanted to pay or couldn’t pay as a result of the shortage of cash, they should come and pick up their cars and he has waved the fines.
“Mind you, that does not include major crimes committed. These are just minor traffic offences that have been committed in Lagos and this is showing empathy and trying to understand that look, we understand how difficult it has been and it is not a reason for us to stop you from making ends meet and so hence the governor’s magnanimity.” Oladeinde added.
Lagos Starts Giving Impounded vehicles after seizing these vehicles for months where the owners pleaded to pay some sorts of fine
In an interview with PMNewsNigeria, according to the commissioner: “all those who have committed crime within that period should come and pick up their cars, that doesn’t mean people should continue to offend and so right now, what we are doing is to caution them not to commit the offence again.
“After the cash crunch is over we arrest, What we are doing right now educating people, like correcting them to just making sure that they don’t commit an offence again, but obviously if you commit a major crime, the law has to take his course.”
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Oladeinde asserted that the government’s current policies have served to reposition the transportation system and that transportation will continue to be the foundation of the state’s economy.
He claimed that the government had kept testing the Blue Line Rail system and that, as the governor had pledged, full operation would begin in April.
“We are opening up the whole public transport arena so that people can have options. So we’re going to continue to encourage private sector to bring in more profit.
“We’re trying to move away from diesel which has been very expensive, and has made public transportation expensive. So we are now piloting some diesel, some CAG buses, and over time, we already have investors who want to bring in these buses and that will crash the cost of public transportation. So we’re doing that with LAMATA,” he added.
