LAGBUS Asset Management Company, operators of Lagos Metropolitan Red Buses, yesterday said it had arrested eight of the company’s staff for allegedly issuing fake tickets to commuters. Mr Tosin Alamu, Head of Enforcement Franchise Unit, LAGBUS, Ikorodu Wing, made the disclosure in an interview in Lagos.
Alamu said that over N17, 000 fake tickets were recovered from them during a recent monitoring exercise. “We have given all our staffs training and warning since we realised that our sales were getting low. The investors who are private establishment and participated in the organisation do not get their money back on time. We realised that this money is being siphoned through the back door; through the ticket vendors and the drivers,” Alamu said.
He said that to guard against the trend, the management decided to increase the welfare, salaries and incentives of the officers of the fleet, including ticket vendors.
“We held meetings with the drivers and the bus officers and warned them based on our findings. The management told them that an enforcement unit will be going round and anybody found with duplicate tickets will be arrested and prosecuted. These ones have been taken to court on
Wednesday to serve as deterrent to others,” he said.
Alamu explained that some of the offenders were caught for allegedly carrying passengers without issuing tickets to them, while some sold recycled tickets.
Meanwhile, an Ogudu Magistrates’ Court, Lagos, has slammed bail of N20, 000 each on the eight alleged offenders after they pleaded innocence to the offence of conspiring to steal from the company.
The magistrate, Mrs O Sule Amzat, ordered that the bail for the accused be accompanied with two sureties each and whose addresses must be verified by the court.
She then, adjourned the case to January 26, 2016. However, the prosecutor, Sgt. Lucky Ihiehie, gave the names of the accused as Olamide Abiodun, 25, Anthony Blessing, 20, Abolade Taiwo, 32 and Adebayo Olayemi, 25.
Others are Ogunyemi Kehinde, 39, Martins Chibuzor, 24, Adegboye Ope, 22, and Ibrahim Bola, 33. He said they were all charged with conspiracy and stealing. Ihiehie told the court that they committed the crime on Nov. 30, at Ketu BRT bus stop.
He said that they conspired and were reselling already used tickets to passengers.
Ihiehie said that the ones they had resold on the day before they were apprehended amounted to N17, 400.
He said that investigation showed that the accused and others at large had been wrecking LAGBUS. He added that they were arrested when the company’s management decided to conduct a random search. Ihiehie said that the accused persons included six women and two men, adding that some of the women hid some of the tickets and money in their private parts.
The offence contravenes sections 409 and 285 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011
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