Lagos Assembly recommends forceful removal of abandoned vehicles

The Lagos State House of Assembly (LAHA) has recommended that any vehicle abandoned on the highway should be removed by relevant Agencies after thirty minutes.

This was the resolution of the House after the report of the House Committee on Transportation on a Bill for a Law to Amend the Lagos State Transport Sector Reform Law 2018.

In the Amendment, it was stated that where a motor vehicle is stationary or abandoned on a highway or street or near private premises, any officer of the authority may cause the vehicle to be removed to a designated vehicle park.

This, they said, should be done if the officer has reasonable grounds for believing that the location of the vehicle is in contravention of the provisions of a law or regulation relating to the parking of vehicles.

The Amendment had it further that where the vehicle was found not to have been abandoned but left on the highway for an unreasonably long time, the owner shall bear the cost of towing the vehicle to a designated vehicle Park and shall be liable on conviction to a fine of fifty thousand naira (50,000) or to any non-custodial sentence.

Speaker of the House, Mudashiru Obasa, said that there were some roads that were categorised and that if vehicles were stationed or abandoned on such roads the vehicles would be towed.

The Speaker however, urged the residents of the state to alert the relevant authorities if they noticed that a vehicle is abandoned in their area for a long time.

According to the amendment, there was an urgent need to further strengthen the proposed law by removing the overlapping functions between LAMATA and LBSL.

It was added that LAMATA should concentrate on regulatory functions and providing infrastructure in the transport sector while LBSL should deal with matters relating to operation for better service delivery to the people and for effective and efficient workability of the law.

 

Iniobong Iwok