Road transport policy impact on economic development in federal capital territory Abuja, Nigeria

Abstract

Road transportation is the vital factor of economic development. The purpose of this research road transport policy impact on economic development in Federal Capital Territory Abuja. The study employed both primary and secondary as sources of data. This study employed stratified sampling to select 400 respondents of which 160 were found valid for the analysis. Five Likert-scale type questionnaires were used for collecting the data. The analysis was conducted with the aid of Microsoft Excel and IBM statistical package for social science (SPSS) Version 26. For interview administration, the purposive sampling technique was used to select the 5 Directors from the Federal Capital Territory Transport Secretariat who are the custodian of road transport policy. The secondary sources were obtained wholly from published materials and official Government documents and files. Federal Capital Territory Transport Secretariat, The National Planning Commission, Federal Ministry of Transport, and its Parastatals, and the Bureau for Public Enterprises were the main sources of data. The finding from the document review and interview reveals that lacks of full implementation, funding constraints, corruption and enactments of institutional framework that will give investors’ confidence to invest in road transport are the major factors that affecting the road transport policy. The interviews agree that policies of road transportation enhance economic development by providing easy access to the workplace, schools, and markets. However, finding from the questionnaires result reveals that, road infrastructures and safety were positively and significantly related with economic development. The study concluded that government should expediate action to establish institutional framework that will not only execute the reforms implementation with the Act but generate necessary fund for road infrastructural development through taxes.