The Enugu Coalition of Business and Professional Associations (ECOBPA) has urged Enugu State Government to embark on continuous public enlightenment to reduce traffic offences in the state.
The Coordinator of the Coalition, Chief Emeka Okereke, made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Enugu on Saturday.
NAN reports that ECOBPA comprises of 32 business and professional associations.
Okereke said that the State was currently bedeviled by indiscriminate clamp down of vehicles by state government agents.
“Traffic control has been characterized by multiplicity of traffic control agents, indiscriminate arrests and arbitrary fines and charges.
“The State Government should embark on continuous public enlightenment to sensitize the public on traffic rules and regulations and train the traffic officers on traffic control best practices.
“This will decrease the rate of traffic offences to about 60 percent, promote safety and save the government the embarrassment caused by the unscrupulous traffic officers.
“More than 40 percent of the fines collected by the traffic control officers were not properly accounted for,” Okereke said.
He implored Enugu State government to institute control measures to check the “unofficial collection” by corrupt traffic officers and ensure that traffic offenders pay fines in the designated banks.
“This will increase government Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) by about 10 percent,” the coordinator said.
He also urged the state government to designate more parking lots to discourage road side parking and ease the flow of traffic especially in the newly developed layouts.
“Parking lots can generate revenue for government through parking fees by over 10 percent,” Okereke said.
