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Abuja taxi project runs into a hitch
By Don Bassey
Correspondent, Abuja
The much-awaited Abuja Green Cab taxi project initiated by
the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Nasir el-Rufai, may have run into
a hitch as the London Taxi International (LTI), one of the two car
manufacturers selected for the project has cut by half the vehicles required
for the take-off of the scheme in January next year.
This comes as Daily Independent investigations revealed that the
Abuja project was not listed among LTI’s overseas contracts, which in
July this year sent a sample of their car to the FCT Ministry.The British
automobile firm named the countries it is doing business with overseas to
include the United States, China and Mexico but excludes Nigeria.
In the US, LTI says it has sold 194 taxis to date while it also
signed an LOI agreement with Bluestar and Lanzhou Governments in the Peoples
Republic of China where project proposal have been submitted and negotiations
with Chinese Government are ongoing. Mexico’s license was signed in March
2004 while work is said to be ongoing to establish a production facility. The
Abuja project was not listed.
Announcing LTI’s inability to meet the target of 100
cabs for the take-off of the project in January, el-Rufai said the company had
informed him it would only provide 50 percent translating to only 50 cabs of
the 100 required to start operations in January.
Information posted on LTI’s website also revealed that
the company sold 3, 391 of its cabs in 2000, 2,588 in 2001, 2,602 in 2002,
2,320 in 2003 and 2,494 of the cabs so far this year. Its 2004 financial
overview shows that the company reduced its losses from N2.5 billion
(£10.2 million) to N300m (£1.2 million) with the Vehicles Division
posting a N1.07 billion (£4.3m profit). The company also has a Net Debt
of N425m (£1.7 million) and a dividend of two Pence.
Peugeot Automobile Nigeria (PAN), the second automobile firm
involved in the Abuja Green Cab Project expected to provide another 100 of its
307 models for the scheme Tuesday told our reporter it was ready to meet the
number. The company’s Public Relations Manager, Baba Ahmed, told Daily
Independent on the phone that the company’s Board Meeting would hold in
Kaduna next week to deliberate on the matter.
El-Rufai had, in his Ministerial Press Briefing in April,
announced plans to phase out the rickety buses and taxis that ply the FCT roads
and replace them with 300 high-capacity buses and 4, 000 uniform taxis from the
London Taxi International Company and Peugeot Automobile Nigeria (PAN)
respectively.
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