Lagos kicks over commercial drivers’ partial compliance with fare reduction

The Lagos State Government has expressed dissatisfaction with partial compliance by commercial transporters concerning the promise to reduce fares across board.

The Director, Transport Operations, Ministry of Transportation, Olasukanmi Ojowuro, said this during an inspection visit to some parks and garages in Agege, Iyana-Ipaja, and Ikeja areas of Lagos on Thursday.

Ojowuro said, “We visited seven units in Agege and five units complied. We have informed the non-compliant units to do the needful because we have officials who will be monitoring them.

“We all know the situation in the country now, and the government wants to stabilise the economy, which is why we came to find out the level of compliance by the commercial operators.

“The commercial buses union had pledged to reduce their fares by 25 per cent across board after the meeting with Mr Governor.

“We discovered that the union had also reduced the daily ticketing to N600 from N800.

“We need your cooperation and we want to find out if you are complying with the directive,” Ojowuro said.

At Ikeja, Ojowuro pleaded with them to support the reduction in some of the parks where it had yet to be implemented.

He commended compliance level at Iyana-Ipaja saying that they had reduced fare from Iyana-Ipaja to  Abesan  area of Lagos by 50 per cent.

Iyabo Akeju, Chairman, Alausa route in Agege, said they had reduced state government tickets to N600 following government directive, while they had also reduced their daily ticket to N200  from the initial N400.

“Before now, passengers usually paid N200 and they were sitting four in a row, but the passengers complained that they preferred to sit three in a row and pay N300 per person,” Akeju said.

Recall that Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu had on Monday announced that the state was effecting a 50 per cent slash on fares on the BRT buses with effect from August 2.

Sanwo-Olu had also said the yellow buses privately owned had also promised 25 per cent reduction on their fares from the same date.