March 06, (THEWILL) – Motorists have decried the activities of the Vehicle Inspection Unit of the Plateau State Ministry of Transport on the highways and streets of Jos in the name of vehicle inspection.
There is fear among road users that the prevailing tension between officials of the VIO on one hand and commercial drivers and operators of tricycles, popularly known as Keke Napep, on the other hand, will degenerate into full blown confrontation and protest if the Plateau State Government fails to intervene and call the VIO personnel to order.
VIO officials come to the roads as early as 8am, from Monday to Friday, and harass motorists by stopping them in the middle of the road to check their vehicle particulars for genuineness and currency.
THEWILL investigation shows that in the course of such checks, men of the VIO charge ‘defaulters’ varying sums of money as fine without any law enabling them to do so.
Without any enabling law, they often extend their working time to 5pm or 6pm, especially during festive periods, under the guise of shoring up internally generated revenue.
It was confirmed that the VIO normally charge any amount between N500 and N25,000, depending on the class of the vehicle and its ‘offence’, or impound the vehicle and impose a fine on the owner, which must be offset before the vehicle or tricycle is released. The VIO however will not issue the offender receipts for such payment made to them.
The VIO however bit more than they could chew last week Monday when they charged and collected N5,000 from a journalist and failed to provide an invoice for the payment. The journalist took the matter up to the State Ministry of Transport where a deputy director of transport caused the head of the VIO Area Office along the Old Airport Road, Jos to issue their victim a sheet of paper using a fake TIN, and without reflecting the name of the payer or the number of his vehicle.
The journalist’s encounter has become a rallying point among VIO victims, as it was discovered the VIO operations are illegal and only being sustained by a devious syndicate in the state government. Corruption within the VIO is stinking and the PLHA took note of it during the recent budget defence when the amorphous agency declared a scandalous N700, 000 as revenue earned in the past year.
