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.
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