Senate passes Transport Commission Bill

The Senate on Friday passed the National Transport Commission Bill into law. The Bill is for the replacement of the Nigerian Shippers Council with National Transport Commission (NTC).

The bill was sponsored for the first time in 2008 but could not be passed by the Seventh Senate due to its complex nature.

Its current version was sponsored by Senator Andy Uba (Anambra South), and was read for the second time on the floor of the Senate on October 7, 2015, after which the Senate referred it to its Joint Committee on Land Transport, Marine Transport and Aviation Transport, chaired by Senator Gbenga Ashafa (Lagos East).

The committee held interactive sessions with stakeholders in the transport industry to evaluate the bill. They also staged a public hearing to enable them handle the bill before it was presented for the third reading.

Ashafa lauded the development, having worked assiduously with other committee members and stakeholders to ensure it is passed.

He said: “The National Transportation Commission Bill, when signed into law, is capable of setting the transport sector on the path of positive development. With this bill, we would successfully create a multi-modal economic and safety oversight regulator for the transport sector. This is very good for business as it brings standard and structure to the sector, while also increasing government’s revenue.

The joint Senate Committee worked with the understanding that this is one of the important Economic Bills of the eighth Senate and, therefore, ensured that all inputs from stakeholders were considered and the best possible version of the bill presented.

It will be recalled that the House of Representatives had on April 12, 2017 passed the bill for the Nigerian Shippers Council.