Katsina State Transport Authority (KSTA) says in the last four years, it has settled N50 million debt and other liabilities it inherited, and also purchased additional buses.
Alhaji Haruna Musa, the General Manager of KSTA, stated this on Thursday during the launch of three additional new buses purchased by the authority.
According to him, the effort was to uplift the number of its fleet in addition to generating more revenue for the state.
He added that other debts settled include salaries and other related liabilities from dealers and traders of assorted vehicles spare parts.
Musa said the feat was achieved through the new financial arrangement vis-a-vis the public private partnership introduced by the Gov. Aminu Masari-led administration where money generated is divided into three parts.
Musa added that the first part goes to staff salary, the second goes to vehicle maintenance and the third was for capital investment.
He also announced that the transport authority emphasised the need for its drivers to observe safety measures in their daily duties.
The General Manager added that the management of the authority does not relent in monitoring its drivers discretely in order to take appropriate actions against erring ones as deterrent to others.
“The effort we have made is that, when we came on board in 2018 we met the authority in its dilapidation stage where out of the 106 vehicles that were available, 57 were grounded with various degrees of problems.
“49 vehicles were plying on roads out of which only two were serviceable and with huge debt. The state government intervened by providing the authority with 25 new buses to complement in generating more revenue to the organisation.
“It has now reached the level that we have zero vehicles waiting for maintenance in the workshop,” Musa said.
Launching the three newly purchased buses, Gov. Masari appreciated the performance of the current management of the transport authority.
“I have been involved with the KSTA as far back as 1992 when I was the Commissioner of Works, Housing and Transport during Saidu Barda. The KTSTA then was not functioning, in fact it was dead.
“We advised the then governor to resuscitate the transport authority for the benefit of the masses, which he did, and we started with not more than 30 new buses at that time.
“We then brought in a new management led by Alhaji Gafai with a new financial arrangement whereby we used to divide the KTSTA revenue into three, for salary, maintenance and for capital investment.
“After that, things started falling apart in the authority with various successive governments sinking a lot of money and when we came in, we also attempted to make changes but our initial efforts did not pay off until we brought new management.
“And we instructed them to first make sure that the vehicles are functioning, all the outstanding liabilities belonging to the staff are settled and those who supplied them with spare parts and other services are paid,” he said.
