The Nigerian Senate has approved the conference committee report on the National Transport Commission Bill, following President Muhammadu Buhari’s rejection.

This followed the presentation of the conference committee report on Wednesday, during plenary by lawmaker representing Lagos West, Senator Gbenga Ashafa, who informed the senate that the observations raised by the President have been resolved and the chamber approved it.

The key issues relate to duplication of duties and retention of revenues for the agency to be created.

The ten year old bill seeks to create an independent multi-modal economic regulator for the transport industry sector.

However, it was initially passed by the Senate on 15, March 2018 and 11 April, 2018 in the House of Representatives.

Some differences were noticed in the two versions passed by the two chambers necessitating a conference committee.

The conference report was passed in the senate on the 6th June 2018 and in the House on the 19th July and transmitted to President for assent.

The President declined for the following reasons:

“Safety regulations enshrined in some sections of the bill falls within the purview of sector legislation implemented by agencies like NIMASA and therefore should be expunged from the bill.

“The percentage of the amount to be retained by the agency collected under section 9 (2) (d) should be reduced from 10 to 5 per cent.”

The section stipulates that a portion of the proceeds from the royalties collected from the authority to collect royalties from transport service providers should not exceed 10 per cent of what is collected by service providers and concessionaires.

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