The Ministry of Transportation in Cross State State has commenced the process of issuing security numbers (codes) to operators of commercial vehicles plying the state, to enable the state government track down criminal using thier vehicles and tricycles to aid insecurity and other criminal activities.
Addressing operators of the transport sector, comprising representatives of bus drivers, tricycle operators, and truck drivers, on Thursday in Calabar, the State’s Transportation Commissioner, Pastor Ekpeyong Cobham, solicited the cooperation of the transport operators to enable state government restore sanity in the sector.
Cobham, who said that he has given the operators of the sector up to March 31, 2024, to complete the process of registration with the ministry, threatened to sanction defaulters.
“There are requisite fines against defaulters known to have disobey government directives or criminally forged Coding number, will be handed over to law enforcement agents.
“As the head of the ministry, I am conscious of the fact that we are at the very critical period to reform the sector in line with His Excellency’s mantra of people’s friendly policies,” Cobham maintained.
He stressed that vehicles coding has become necessary to assist the state government in generating data that would help to regulate the transportation sub-sector, especially now that insecurity was troubling the state.
“We had an instance where someone used a tricycle for robbery. It was impossible to track down the criminal because he had a fake security number on his tricycle.
“We have to holistically commence the process of thinking outside the box on how to restore this critical function of the ministry.
“Initial phase is to reconcile the existing numbers to determine those which are fake and those that are authentic,” the Commissioner added, stressing that there are certain documentation that will aid the ministry differentiate codes that were authentic from fake ones.
“When a particular number is picked and keyed to our website, it will give you true identity of vehicle owner and rider,” Cobham added, stressing that absence of this provided very porous situation in the past.