By Janefrances Chibundu | October 30, 2024
The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) says it is stepping up measures to tackle ticket racketeering on the Warri-Itakpe train service.
In a statement on Wednesday, Sanni Abdulganiyu, coordinator of the Warri-Itakpe train service, expressed dissatisfaction over the recent incidents of ticket fraud involving some staff.
He noted that an internal review is underway to address these issues, emphasising that those found guilty will face strict consequences.
He said the NRC is setting up a hotline to make reporting any ticketing issues easier.
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Abdulganiyu added that the corporation is committed to providing fair and trustworthy service to the public.
“We have been actively working to prevent such issues, and in (the) light to the reports, we are increasing our efforts. Anyone found responsible will be held accountable,” the statement reads.
“We’re also stepping up monitoring and improving our ticketing process to prevent overcharging and make our services more transparent.”
Comments:
A rather pathetic exhortation by the NRC suggesting a lack of seriousness in stemming the enduring menace of ticket racketeering and institutional revenue leakage.
The stories of racketeering on the central line have been doing the rounds for many months and have been accompanied by reports of unsatisfactory train journeys. A serious effort to combat racketeering from a responsive authority would have involved undercover sting type investigations but instead most times, we have “accidental discoveries” usually initiated through third party interventions. NRC management always appearing oblivious of the fact while paying lip service each time with perpetrators getting no more than a proverbial slap on the wrist.
These sorts of vacuous announcements appear more for public relations consumption to give the impression of something being done about it while in reality, sweet F.A. will go on. Indeed such declarations may fuel the impression of higher level complicity in the rackets. Suffice that the last desk top assessment that we carried out of this phenomenon in 2023 suggested a revenue loss of at least N3bn p.a. in context, that’s about 30% of the business’ total annual revenue.
Sadly, no operator can sustain such bleeding and this is reflecting in its increasingly depressing output.