AWKA—ANAMBRA State Government yesterday abolished task force operating at the various motor parks and markets in the state.

The state government’s decision may have been informed by the excesses of members of the task force who had allegedly been extorting large sums of money from all categories of vehicles plying roads in the state.

Recently, Vanguard was a victim of a task force which extorted N27,000 from a driver that conveyed Vanguard newspapers from Lagos to Onitsha after detaining the vehicle for several hours.

Anambra State Commissioner for Special Duties and Transport, Mr. Robert Okonkwo, at a meeting with members of the National Associassion of Road Transport Owners, NARTO, Urban Mass Transport Operators, tanker drivers, among others, in Awka yesterday, said there would no longer be task force for the sale of emblems, adding that anybody parading himself as a member of any task force for the sale of emblems would be seriously dealt with.

He said, following the government decision, the office of the special adviser to the governor on markets and parks will no longer exist from January 1 next year. He added that the department dealing with markets would move to the Ministry of Commerce while the department dealing with parks would move to the Ministry of Special Duties and Transport.

He explained that transporters should henceforth pay their consolidated emblem tax through the designated banks collecting revenue for the state government, adding that enforcement of non-payment for the emblem which he put at N10000 (N7000 for the state and N3000 for the local government) would start from March next year.

Most of the transporters who spoke during the meeting with the commissioner, narrated their ordeal, regretting that their vehicles plied freely from other parts of the country without problems until they entered Anambra State and urged government to do something about it.

Vanguard recalls that recently, members of the task force on markets and parks clashed with officials of the ministry of transport in Onitsha leading to the destruction of five vehicles belonging to the ministry, while many people sustained injuries.

Also, it was the activities of the task forces that led to the death of five people in Onitsha few days ago when a trailer driver who was trying to escape from them ran into a crowd.



http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/11/anambra-abolishes-task-force-on-markets-parks/