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Managing Director, Nasarawa State Investment Company, Mr Ibrahim Abdullahi
By Francis Nansak, Lafia
The management of Nasarawa State Investment Company has cleared the air on developments surrounding the recently commissioned Mega Bus Terminals in Lafia and Karu local government areas.
Making known the objectives for the establishment of the transportation hubs in a telephone conversation, the Managing Director of the company, Mr Ibrahim Abdullahi said against public insinuations, from the start of construction to the point of concession, the state had in mind the vision to reducing traffic gridlock and raising insecurity.
Abdullahi stressed that Nasarawa State government had at first considered revamping the state transport company, NTC through private investors.
He said: “So, what we did as a government was to see to the concession of the Bus Terminals and NTC will pay for running of the terminals.
“NTC as I speak, runs a flight of vehicles and they are in phases. First, is the inter states, within the state and the Abuja-Karu transport which has provision for BRT system.
“What we have done with respect to the Bus Terminals is what we called the Nasarawa State Integrated Transport Project, which started by construction of the terminals, it was concession to the Nasarawa Transport Company (NTC) that means the state partners with private investors to set up the NTC,” he said.
The Managing Director added that the NTC will allow all transport operators as this also includes logistics services in the terminal.
According to him, government resources were not deployed in the purchased of the buses, but it is the private partners that will continue to operate fleet of vehicles under what we called the Nasarawa Transport Company.
He said it is purely a commercial arrangement and buses have started running around which also depended on the modus operandi of the company.
Abdullahi maintained that the NTC is purely a private partnership with little of government involvement.
Apex News Exclusive reports that some residents of Karu had question why from the commissioning of the bus terminal, no vehicle was seen either with inscription indicating that it was a transport company of the Nasarawa State Government.
Others were having the notion that Nasarawa State government only embarked on a white elephant project that lacks financial gains but only commissioned for political aggrandizement.
