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Raymond Ozoji, Awka
The Chairman, Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN) Anambra State Chapter, Comrade Kingsley Maduagwuna Baron, has said that the association is set to sanitize the transport sector in Anambra.
Baron emphasized that RTEAN has come to rid Anambra state off illegal tickets and levies, unauthorized charges at motor parks, touting and a host of other illegitimate activities in the transport sector.
Speaking during an exclusive interview with our correspondent at RTEAN office Awka, the chairman explained that the association would collaborate with the state government through the ministry of transport to ensure that all illegalities and anomalies in the industry were eliminated, especially now that the authentic leadership of the association in Anambra has been ascertained and ratified.
The RTEAN helmsman said that the organization plans to sanitize all motor parks across Anambra state to ward off criminal elements and also ensure that workers in the transport sector enjoy their work, noting that RTEAN has come to correct the negative impression that transport business is for touts and miscreants.
Baron maintained that RTEAN would ensure that the state government met its aspirations as it concerns Internally Generated Revenue and equally remove all forms of illegalities on the roads. He said the association is authorised and empowered by the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to manage all parks across the country with emphasis on Anambra state.
He pointed out that RTEAN has identification uniforms and the activities of the association are guided by the law establishing it, stressing that there is no room for touts and criminal elements in RTEAN’s operations in Anambra.
Although he noted that there are many impostors collecting money from motorists in the guise of government revenue agents, he explained that RTEAN working with the state government would put an end to such unauthorized operations. He expressed worry that unauthorized unions had taken over the parks and collected levies indiscriminately. These unhealthy practices, he noted, would be eradicated when RTEAN established a pact with the state government and assume its constitutional position of being the only transport union legally empowered to issue tickets, collect revenues as well as revamp the transport industry.
According to him, the association had suffered years of leadership crisis and disharmony but stated that RTEAN Anambra state chapter has been repositioned for greater efficiency and he is currently the authentic Chairman of RTEAN in the state. He also added that anyone who goes about parading and masquerading himself as RTEAN chairman in Anambra state, does so at his own peril.
