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Roadworthiness Certificates for Lagos Vehicles

Sunday Aborisade

The era of rickety vehicles plying the roads of the Lagos metropolis may be over as the state governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), has said that his government will soon be issuing roadworthiness certificates to all vehicles in the state.

Fashola stated this on Thursday in Ikeja while inaugurating the Auto-Hackney and Auto-Insure introduced under the Automated Vehicle Registration and Renewal policy for vehicle owners in the state.
Represented on the occasion by his deputy, Mrs. Adebisi Sosan, the governor lamented the frequent cases of traffic congestion and air pollution being caused by many vehicles on Lagos roads.

The governor explained that the issuance of roadworthiness certificates to all categories of vehicles in the state would ensure safety of lives and property of commuters and the entire populace. He said the billions of naira being committed to building network of roads within the metropolis would not achieve the desired objective if government failed to pay attention to the condition of the vehicles plying them.

He said, "The resultant greater efficiency and transparency in the issuance of roadworthiness certificates will further raise the safety standards of vehicles plying our roads to our collective benefit. It is the only way we can have constant, reliable and up-to-date data of vehicles plying our roads for the records and for effective planning. It will significantly discourage theft of vehicles as they will be more easily traced when accurate records are kept. We will also be in a better position to ensure that only genuinely roadworthy vehicles ply our roads and those who drive them truly have the necessary competence to do so."

The Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency recently raised the alarm that the emission of polluted air from the exhaust of rickety cars was dangerous to the health of residents.

Investigations at LASEMA reveal that transport was ranked as the largest single source of air pollution in the state, causing nearly two-third of the carbon monoxide, a third of the nitrogen oxides, and a quarter of the hydrocarbons in the atmosphere. The findings also show that with the escalation in the number of vehicles on the roads and the emission of dangerous fumes, Lagos was on the fast lane to smoggy skies and dirty air.

Fashola said registration and renewal of vehicle particulars, which would henceforth be processed online, would make it easy to get rid of smoky cars from Lagos roads.

In a study on the air quality improvement in Lagos, a member of staff of the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority, a World Bank-assisted project, Mr. Olukayode Taiwo, blamed the situation on the nation's poor economy.

Taiwo, in his study entitled, "The state of urban air pollution in Lagos," said cars already written off the roads abroad and meant to be crushed as scraps, were being imported into the country, not minding their harmful effects.

"Cars that should have been fitted with catalytic converters are sold to the Nigerian market where they pollute the environment indiscri-minately," he said.
The expert lamented that there was no legislative framework or set standard to monitor emission from mobile services. He said the legislation put in place by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency in 1991 was limited to emission generated through stationery sources like generators and heavy equipment in factories.

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