Abia State House of Assembly Speaker, Rt. Hon. Chinedum Orji, has assured tricycle operators in Umuahia zone that government will resolve the matter bothering on multiple taxation against them soon.
Orji who gave the assurance while addressing the mamoth crowd of Keke operators that visited the State House of Assembly on a peaceful demonstration against the mistreatment meted on them by some unauthorized revenue agents expressed displeasure over the complaint and maintained that they must proffer a lasting solution to the misdeed.
The member representing Umuahia Central State Constituency, further blamed the tricycle operators for violating the State government’s order by not paying their revenues to the designated government account and therefore warned that they must obey the laws of the land.
Speaking Earlier, the Chairman, Abia State Amalgamated Tricycle Operators Association, ASATOA, Umuahia Zone, Comrade Okechukwu Ijebuonwu, had lamented that tricycle operators have suffered a great deal in the hands of touts who extort them beyond what they agreed with the State government.
He said beyond the #150 daily ticket they pay to the government, that some greedy elements in the system had devised other means to extort them unlawfully, coercing them to pay amount for different kinds of tickets between #200 to #400 on daily basis and further alleged that the Deputy Transition Committee Chairman of Umuahia North, Local Government Area, Mr. Eze Okwulehie and his group
were responsible.
The Keke operators’ Chairman, further disclosed that the Abia State Traffic Indiscipline Management Agency, TIMAAS, are equally impounding their tricycles claiming they violate traffic rules whereas there were no designated parks or bus stop created for them, stressing that they had suffered different kinds of attacks in an attempt to refuse such impositions against them but to no avail before they resolved to the peaceful demonstration.
Meanwhile, the Transition Committee Chairman of Umuahia North Local Government Area, Barr. Kelechi Onyenze, said he was not aware of the development of dumping impounded tricycles in the Umuahia North council as claimed by the Keke operators.
