Federal Road Safety Men Require Some Ethical Orientation

By Matts Udoaka

Actually, apart from being an employment agency for teaming Nigerians, and the employers of my good friend from Cross River State, it is my candid view and that of millions of other well meaning Nigerians that the organization known as the Federal Road Safety Commission, should be disbanded forthwith, for lack of competence and focus, as well as attitudinal and ethical lapses, coupled with uncoordinated service delivery to the public.

 Without fear of contradiction, the Federal Road Safety Commission is only good at vehicle particulars checks and coding up of charges to contravened offenders. By right, the Federal Road Safety Commission of any state Command should replicate the sign-post of what this flamboyant organization stands for, in the Federation. But the reverse is the case in the case of ethical re-orientation of the operators of this organization. What then is the FRSC good for, more than being a shameful, virulent organization that values high stakes as a condition for hiding up offenses?

This is the crux of the matter!

FRSC professional incompetence and their flagrant lack of ethics and conscience is too glaring  and that has left the giant organization nomadic. Their exhibition of inordinate behaviour and show of all manners of disrespect to the public exposes their betterment of the nuances of public interaction that interplays in the Organization of this magnitude all over the world. What this translates to is the absence of a periodic consequential training and retraining that can shape them up; the absence of which becomes a debilitating effect of knowledge lapses on public administration. To reach the acceptable  standard of dealing with the public, the FRSC Men should not be left at status quo, which is only a mere perfunctory vehicle checks alone, or attempt to issue and renew driver’s licence, a duty they cannot perform. They must improve in the discharge of their duties and ethics. This function requires more than they do.

Day to day, torrents of reactions on the negative impression about the FRSC men trails the public domain. Their inability to operate their basic common equipment becomes a heat on their output. Indeed their marginal output is below the normal ratio every work force should put. As a result, the public becomes the worse for it. Yet these men do not realize that their services are sustained through the tax payer’s money. Their delays and unfriendly treatment meted out on responsible Nigerians is enough to send them packing. What is in the biometric capture machine that the staff of Federal Road Safety Commission would not operate to get an answer? This machine is commonly being used in every telecoms company to register owners of the newly acquired GSM SIMS. Individuals dealing on phones and phone SIMS also acquire the biometric machine to capture buyers of phone lines. But in FRSC, the capturing machine becomes a difficult equipment to operate, in so much that for upward of one year, a driver’s licence could not be renewed after the payment of every required sum both in cash and at bank to the Commission. This is a shame to this country. For their incompetence, the public throngs the 3 storey office of the Internal Revenue Service that houses the section charged with such function under the Akwa Ibom State Command of the Federal Road Safety Commission. Over time, the public is made to be standing for hours for their licence that should take no more than fifteen minutes to issue after the official required charge has been paid to the FRSC. This system is as condemnable as it is bad to experience in this modern day. Yet, at last the Commission is still unable to get the biometric capturing machine working. This is done to the public without recourse to the high position of some of the members of the public they punish.

The FRSC men should possess what they are up to. They should not copy any other organization that has people with intellectual capacity and the know how to compete in the ICT world. There is nowhere in the world an equipment could be put to use before the operators are listed for training to understand the operation technique of the equipment. It’s only in the FRSC that can happen.

On the attitudinal lapses of the staffers of the organization, it is common that if they were a competing outfit, their disposition with customers could have either decreased their profit margin or create losses to the organization. On the other hand, government parastatal like the Fedral Road Safety Commission should imbibe the culture of hard work. They should be trained and retrained on polite approach to the public. They must remember that for now, ‘customers are always right’ syndrome is no fluke. Therefore, a thorough re-orientation or capacity building programme must be introduced to FRSC, as their management seems to have forgotten that aspect.

              

Bringing everybody to line up in the name of issuing or renewing their driver’s licence is not the best treatment to the public. The organization should look for a bigger accommodation for their driver’s licence issuig purpose instead of squeezing people in a smaller apartment that leaves no space for seats. The officers and men of the FRSC must understand that allowing people to be standing for too long, is far too old a system to continue.

However, if issuing of the driver’s licence is too tedious for them to perform, that area should be left to the Internal Revenue Staff to handle as it was before. As it is, we observe that it is only a few officers that understand the need to treat people’s matter urgently. Others do not care about the long period spent, or whether elderly men or women should sit down while their files are being treated. For another time again, it is good to insulate the FRSC duties from state roads. Before an order comes from the court, it should be understood that the functions of the FRSC men end at the Federal Roads and not the state roads. Using the state roads by them is an unwelcome appendage.