₦airaland Forum

9jaRealist:
The BRT is still being financed by Skye Bank...
And in fact, Primero recently issued new corporate bonds through Skye to purchase new buses.

Nevertheless, there is no major city in the world without some form of subsidized public mass transportation (including bus) system. The primary aim of the Bus Reform Initiative is to upgrade bus transportation in Lagos metropolis by gradually replacing the Danfo buses (and/or ultimately relegating them only to unserved minor routes outside of the main traffic corridors), and hopefully get more middle-class Lagosians to use buses more frequently and cars less frequently. These buses will also run on CNG and thus will be more environmentally-friendly.
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Bro, it's gonna be difficult convincing eachother about our views in respect to this project, the major issue is not really about the idea, I doubt there is anyone out there that dislike such noble idea, myself inclusive (who wants to drag danfo with all wahala wey e get), but the major issue is the model, till date, I doubt the public knows anything about the cost implication of the project which is the major issue, also how many of the small buses are we going to have in a route before stopping the use of danfo of such route, why is it designed to be just a single bus variant, etc

9jaRealist:
You seem misinformed about Mr. Ambode’s Bus Reform Initiative....

Though the government imported the first batch of 820 (out 5000 envisioned) buses to ensure uniformity, those buses are owned by the Lagos Bus Service Limited, which is an asset acquisition and advisory SPV (albeit wholly-owned by the LASG, but run as a regular commercial company) that licenses and enfranchised the PRIVATE operating companies that will actually operate these buses, develop and monitor bus routes and services, and train or re-train drivers and operators, among others. The government will NOT be operating the new buses itself. Even the operators of the current BRT buses (Primero Transport Services Ltd.) has applied as a franchisee to operate some of the new buses.
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I understand that the 820 were given to Coscharis and Elizade.

OlujobaSamuel:
Bro, it's gonna be difficult convincing eachother about our views in respect to this project, the major issue is not really about the idea, I doubt there is anyone out there that dislike such noble idea, myself inclusive (who wants to drag danfo with all wahala wey e get), but the major issue is the model, till date, I doubt the public knows anything about the cost implication of the project which is the major issue, also how many of the small buses are we going to have in a route before stopping the use of danfo of such route, why is it designed to be just a single bus variant, etc

I didn’t think we were in any substantive disagreement...

I added the Skye Bank information (and it turned out to be Sterling Bank doing the financing) only because you wondered about it. It is generally acknowledged that LASG’s finances have always been largely opaque going back to the Tinubu era (with Alpha Beta, LCC, etc. issues) but that’s a systemic issue, and one good development is that the Ambode government didn’t take on any additional foreign currency debt.
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