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KAROTA plans community service for traffic defaulters

The Kano Road Traffic Agency (KAROTA) on Wednesday said it would soon commence the option of subjecting road traffic offenders to community services.

The Managing Director of the agency, Alhaji Baffa Dan-agundi, revealed this when he received the Executives of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) Kano State Correspondent Chapel.

According to him, any defaulter found guilty, especially some minor offences can be punished through the community service anywhere across the state.

“You know, one of the challenges we face is that when you arrest some of these traffic offenders, they will tell you that they don’t have money. KAROTA is not a revenue generation agency although, what we are really after is for road users to maintain traffic laws.

“So, we want to introduce this community services as a way of punishment so that when you say you don’t have money to pay your fine, you will be assigned to do a community service commiserate with the gravity of traffic offence you committed.”

According to him, the Agency has sensitised the public on how to avoid minor traffic offences that usually cause unnecessary gridlock and accidents, which in most cases lead to loss of human lives.

He further explained that KAROTA had arrested and secured the conviction of over 5000 traffic offenders within one month in the state through the traffic offences Mobile Court.

Dan-agudi said their offences ranged from wrong parking, reckless driving, receiving/making calls while driving, speeding, among other related traffic offences.

He further stated that, “as a result of the measures we put in place, since I came in as the Managing Director of KAROTA, the rate of accidents within Kano metropolis has dropped by over 70 per cent.

”This is not a fabricated data. The facts are there even in our hospitals. When I visited some of the hospitals within the state, they confirmed this to me.

”Because this feat is due to the re-orientation of our staff who are now fully motivated to work for the interest of the people and our dear Kano state.”

He added that: “to tell you that even the road users are now conscious of the traffic laws. By June this year for instance, we were getting about N5.5 million as fines from traffic offenders, but in July, we were able to receive only N2 million as fine from traffic offenders.”

According to him, this was as a result of measures put in place by the agency, adding that “this is to tell you that the road users are now abiding by the traffic laws, rules and regulations.”

The KAROTA boss, however, called on Kano residents and road users to always obey traffic laws, saying that “because it is human life we are talking about here.

”If all of us do what is right while on the road, KAROTA will have less work to do and the society will be better for it.”

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