Similarly, about the same amount may have been lost to corrupt officers of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, who allegedly took money from erring motorists without booking them.
The Special Adviser to the Governor on Transportation, Mr. Kayode Opeifa, gave an indication that an average of 1,600 motorists were arrested every month since January this year, with each of them expected to pay between N2,000 and N25,000 as fines.
Going by this average figure, by the end of the year, no fewer than 19,200 drivers would have been apprehended for contravening traffic laws.
Additional fines are also paid by motorists, whose vehicles are towed to any nearby LASTMA office.
According to Opeifa, as at October 2010, about 7,000 vehicles found to be obstructing free flow of traffic were towed to LASTMA yards.
The state charges N5,000 for obstruction of traffic due to abandonment of vehicles and N2,000 for parking on the highway and walkway. Driving against traffic attracts a fine of N25,000 with a reference to the Yaba Psychiatric Hospital for medical test.
Offenders whose cars or buses are towed are required to pay an additional fee of N10,000.
Opeifa gave an indication that the number of traffic offenders had maginally reduced this year, compared to last year.
He said about 23,000 drivers were found to have contravened traffic laws in the state in 2009, adding that 6,867 violators‘ vehicles were towed during the same period.
The motorists must have been made to pay at least N173.67m in 2009 for traffic law violations, if the average of the fines and towing charges are N5,000 and N10,000, respectively.
Meanwhile, a source said the state was also losing as much as the amount being generated monthly to non-booking of arrested motorists.
”Half of what is being paid to government coffers is also going into the pockets of some corrupt LASTMA officers, who demand for bribes from those arrested rather than book them,” the source said.
A LASTMA officer was recently taken to court for allegedly collecting bibe from a motorist.
Opeifa, who dismissed the insinuation that the state government had a revenue target for LASTMA, said what the agency was generating was less than 30 per cent of the amount it required for its operations.
He said, ”What we get from fines is not enough to pay the salaries of LASTMA junior staff members, not to talk of the senior staff members; the cost of diesel, the cost of maintaining patrol vehicles and purchase of other patrol equipment. What we spend on acquiring tow trucks alone is more than what we generate in two years, excluding salaries. The cost of our operations annually is more than what we generate.
”Traffic management is not for the purpose of revenue generation. It does bring in revenue, but not enough to fund the operations. Parking is a source of revenue in other countries. In Lagos, for now, the government does not generate anything from parking. Government spends heavily to keep LASTMA operations going. What the agency makes from fines is small.”
Source:Punch
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