Florence Uwaeme
Commercial drivers plying the Old Aba route have protested the excessive ticket fare extorted from them at the Mini Okoro Police Station in Rumuogba, Old Aba Road, Port Harcourt.
The angry drivers who blocked the road told our correspondent in a brief chat that each driver is forced to pay as high as N3,100.00 daily in Rivers State.
They alleged that the community boys constantly harass them to path with money daily in order for them to load, and called on the government to reduce the ticketing menace and to also bar the notorious community boys from humiliating them.
Speaking further, they said that with the newly introduced tax regime by the federal government, they are merely struggling to survive, stressing that they cough out much more than they earn each day.
Although the governor Nyesom Wike led government promised to phase out the multiple taxations faced by commercial drivers at different loading points in the State, with the Rivers State Internal Revenue Services commencing the implementation of commercial daily ticketing for commercial vehicles, the practice still persists.
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The ticketing at different loading points are controlled by thugs who do not remit the money generated to the government.
The Wike led administration rejigged its tax collection mechanism in the face of dwindling oil revenue and multiple debts, with a significant part of its annual budget expected to be funded by increased IGR collection.
The Executive Chairman of RIRS, Adoage Norteh who communicated the development to the Transport Union Representatives in a meeting in mid-October projected that the daily ticketing is expected to curb the irregularities occurring at the motor parks and also ease the burdens of multiple ticketing on drivers at the parks.
The government said each driver would pay 300 Naira daily and obtain a scratch card while an extra 100 Naira will be paid to the transport union but the community tax masters have carried on with their illegal taxation of drivers.
The multiple ticketing, theportcitynews gathered, has forced both government’s income and that of the commercial drivers to dwindle as most of the millions collected daily from the drivers by thugs at different loading points end up in the pockets of unknown influential persons in those areas.
The government’s daily ticketing which commenced on Monday 21st October 2019 has not reduced the menace of “Community Boys” as drivers who initially expressed happiness over the development have said the process has failed.
Some Drivers told theportcitynews early in October that they pay as much 3000 Naira each to thugs controlling the loading points daily and those who refused to pay are harassed and intimidated with violence.
They urged the government to fasten the implementation of the daily ticketing as it would ensure the money realised goes into the coffers of the government which would be used to better the society.
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