Mr Raynolds Shodeinde, Assistant Director, Administration, Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT), Nigeria has called for urgent review of the National Transportation Policy (NTP) to enhance effective transport management in Nigeria.
Shodeinde made the call at the inauguration of CILT, Aviation chapter at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja on Wednesday.
He said that the nation’s transport sector would continue to have low impact on the economy as long as reliable transport policy was not developed.
Shodeinde said that CILT was already working with other relevant stakeholders in the industry to bring about a workable transport policy that would transform the management of transport in Nigeria.
According to him, if you look at private companies that are into logistics and transport, many of them are efficient but transportation is a government thing in Nigeria.
“We will continue to see this kind of a thing in a country where we do not have a workable National Transport Policy (NTP).
“You may wish to know that the draft national policy is being revised right now and CILT is one of the organisations that have been called into this review.
“Until such a time when we have a working transport policy that can stipulate how management should run, how operation should be ran in this sector, we will continue to fall and rise.
“I am very happy to let you know that all this will soon be a thing of the past because the draft National Transport Policy is presently being reviewed.
“When we have that transport policy that is very reliable and dependable, we will begin to see changes,’’ he said.
Shodeinde, however, charged the newly CILT members to take advantage of their membership of the institute to improve their skills for effective service delivery in the sector.
He said that improved skills would lead to efficient service delivery at both operational and managerial level.
“Belonging to CILT will help them to improve on their skills, and the effect is that service delivery will be improved because there is direct correlation between skills acquisition and service delivery.
“CILT affords its members some special kind of training which we do both formal and informal, long term and short term.’’
Mr Alex Okosun, CILT Coordinator, Aviation chapter, said that the new members would have the opportunity to personal development toward becoming professionals in logistics and transport management.
Okosun said that CILT covered all the modes of transportation in the world, of which aviation was a very important component, adding that the institute had many courses on personal development.
He said that the objective of bringing CILT to aviation sector was to help in the development of technical and managerial capabilities of the members for efficient and effective service delivery.
“It happened that we have a lot of top management officers including the managing director who are members of the institute, but we want to give those at the lower cadre the opportunity to grow well.
“ I believe that in the next five years, the result will be visible because we will be able to showcase the impact of our membership of this institute.
“CILT is the mother of transportation but it is unfortunate that in Nigeria people don’t recognise that, because in the United Kingdom, CILT is the policy thrust of the government as far as transportation is concerned.
“Once they want to make any transport policy, it is about CILT which is directly under the Queen and CILT is in 34 countries,’’ he said.
Okosun disclosed that 21 new members received certificates of membership on Wednesday bringing the total number of inducted members in aviation sector to 43.
