 Commercial tricycle and motorcycle owners and riders association led by Alaji Mohammed Sani Hassan. The Road Transport Employer Association of Nigeria led by Alaji Dr. Musa Muhammad. The Nigeria Association of Road Transport Owners, Alaji Yusuf Lauer-Othman, amalgamated commercial tricycle and motorcycle owners, repairs and riders association are come around led by Prince Shamsuddin Adibayu Aqbalubu. God is good mobility led by Mrs. Vawakwo Mogere and all members of the leadership of transport associations present ladies and gentlemen. First let me say that it's a great pleasure and an honor also to be able to interact with you today. I'm glad to see that technology has enabled us to interact from different parts of the country with great ease. I think that this makes it easier for us to consult in the future and I must say that one of the very first takeaways from this meeting is that we must find a way of meeting more often so that we can interact and get a sense of what the issues and problems are in the road transport sector in particular. There's no question at all that your sector is vital for the development of the Nigerian economy and even for the running, the day-to-day running of the Nigerian economy. Anyone who has any doubt that transportation is crucial will see from practically every aspect of our lives that transportation plays an incredibly significant role, whether it's the movement of persons, movement of fuel or the movement of food. Whatever you're moving, all logistic arrangements centre around transport and road transport remains the major means of transportation in Nigeria today. For millions of our people, services, goods and services, road transport remains the way to go. So I do not think that government can take road transportation lightly, which is why we have created this platform, but I want to say in particular that it was in recognition of the importance of road transportation to the economy that the Economic Sustainability Committee and the Economic Sustainability Plan, which is a product of the work of that committee, set aside specific funds, the MSME survival fund, with a special focus and emphasis on road transportation workers. That remains the position of the government. Now, we're also very concerned about, because the numbers are huge, obviously the number of road transport workers is huge. So making provision for such a huge number is extremely difficult, as you can imagine, because of limited resources. So the first problem is that we are limited by the resources available to us. But it was very important for us that this process be a transparent process, so that it's an auditable process. Anybody can check where money is going, who is receiving money, how many people have received money. And this is one of the reasons why we're extremely proud of the work that has been done by the survival fund, by the committee. Under the stakeholder, under the variable leadership of the only means of state for industry and investment, I mean, they have meant in short that this is a transparent process. It was at the urging of the Unruh Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment that we brought in a public, a private sector, one of the very important private sector players, a chairman of First Bank, Mrs. Ibu Kungawoshika, to co-chair this MSME survival fund with the Unruh Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, so that we could bring in some private sector discipline and the way that the private sector operates, efficiency of the private sector into this whole thing. So we've tried to work on making sure that this is not just one of those things that is announced as a fund, and the fund doesn't eventually get to you. So I'm glad to hear that substantial percentages of people have received the funds. Those who have not, those who have not, you can be assured that once your people have been enumerated, they will receive their funds. But as you can imagine, there is a limitation of resources naturally. I've heard the various suggestions that have been made and some of the questions that have been asked. On the question of security, obviously that is a major problem and we're all faced with it. And I've also taken on board some of the suggestions that have been made regarding broader issues around the economy. I think that is correct and you're absolutely right that these are issues that we must come from. But we have no, the way that this works is that every generation of leadership and including yourselves because your leaders also are confronted with problems, various problems. The problems differ depending on the time and depending on the circumstances. So it's up to us to confront those issues. So this security challenge, fortunately, we now have a situation where we have a new set of service chiefs, a new set of eyes, a new set of ideas and new energy. And they are working very hard to develop a strategy that they hope will be able to deal with many of the issues that we see around the country, the issues of kidnapping and I've made road transportation very difficult, kidnapping, banditry, insurgency, et cetera, that I've made not just road transportation, by the way, but practically all the forms of enterprise that Nigerians engage in have been made quite difficult. But we see a new resolution and Mr. President has had several meetings, security council meetings and other meetings with the service chiefs, where we're trying to develop a strategy for handling the security concerns. Every other issue that you've mentioned, all the very important issues that you've mentioned, especially around the economy and all that, you can be sure that day and night, that's the business that we are doing, we're working at those issues and we want to make sure that the economy survives. What we're doing is not a favor to the transport industry, no, we're not doing you any kind of favor because we realize the importance of the industry and we think that it's important that this industry survives in the interest of our nation and our economy, in the interest of the people of this country, which is why we're so focused on seeing that we're able to do the best that we can. Mr. President has asked regularly about the progress of the MSME Survival Fund. He's particularly, of course, concerned about transport and what we can do with transport workers. So you can be sure that we're going to be focused on this issue. One of the steps that, of course, you know I would take is that of taking away duty on commercial trucks and vehicles and certainly we're going to be taking a good look again at this issue of being able to fund commercial operators. And this ties in with the issue of 10 billion, the 10 billion fund that you are talking about. I think that in the end what happened is first from what I'm, from my information, there was no provision for it, there was no provision for it in the budget. It was mentioned but there was no provision for it. The only provision that was made was for the Survival Fund. But what the Ministry of Transport is doing now, and this is information we have from the minister, is that they are trying to get funding from the CBN, from the CBN's own private sector funds that they are giving out now to assist the transport sector. So I think that we are still going to be able to do more working with the Ministry of Transport and the CBN. I hope they will be able to put together a package which will be able to assist the transport sector. But let me just say that this is information that I've gathered. We are going to work hard at it. Money is not easy to come by today. So everybody is, we're all struggling to try and see what we can do. So don't tell me in another one week that Mr. Vice President, you promised us 10 billion. I've not made that promise. I'm saying that we are going to work hard to make sure that the CBN and Ministry of Transport are able to provide whatever they can to support the commercial transportation sector so that people can borrow and all that. I like the idea of the transport bank. I like the idea, but that is not the same as policy as you can imagine. If you are going to set up any kind of funding institution, it requires a lot of interaction between all of the relevant agencies and all that to put it together. So there will be a policy, I mean it's not the sort of thing that you can create overnight. Unfortunately and unfortunately in a civilian democracy, constitutional democracy, unlike military, when they formed the People's Bank by just issuing a decree one day, we can't do that. We have to go through a process and there will be legislation. We are also going to need a law to support it. Just as you have a mortgage bank, it's established by law. We have an infrastructure bank, it's established by law. Before you want to set up, there must be a process of establishment by legislation. So at the moment what I think is best for us to do before we can ever get any kind of transport bank is to at least put the resources together. What you need is resources, you need funding, however we can do that, let's even start with that and then hopefully make progress on all the other suggestions around establishing a financial institution dedicated to transporters. So those are my thoughts. What I want us to do is to continue to use this platform and other platforms to interact. I believe very strongly that just a meeting such as this where we are not even gathering anywhere, we've been able to make a lot of progress in terms of hearing you and thinking about what next to do. So can I show you that we will take on board all of your suggestions, we will work hard on trying to see that we are able to meet all of the various challenges that the road transport sector faces and that our nation faces. So thank you very, very much again, all the minister thank you and thank you very much leaders of the transport associations and the transport sector in Nigeria. God bless you. Thank you.