Nigeria needs 1.3 trillion naira over three years to fix roads

Works Minister, Mike Onolememen

Nigeria needs 1.3 trillion naira over three years to fix roads
Obiora Ani, Abuja

Nigeria’s Ministry of Works says it requires Four Hundred and Twenty Billion Naira annually for three years to fix roads nationwide.

The Minister Mike Onolememen said this at the defence of the Ministry’s proposals in the 2012 budget at the National Assembly, Abuja.

Mr. Onolememen informed the committee that the ministry has a capital budget of One Hundred and Eighty Billion Naira for 2012, which is meant to complete 90 percent of all on-going projects while the remaining 10 percent will be devoted to new projects.

He added that the ministry has an outstanding Fifty One Billion Naira in the 2011 budget even as it has a liability of about Forty One Billion Naira.

Chairman Senate Committee on Works, Senator Ayogu Eze, said giving the enormous task, the ministry has to make Nigerian roads motor able and there is the need to allocate more funds for the road sector.

He said the Senate is under intense pressure over the poor condition of the nation’s highways and tasked the ministry to be more imaginative on how to fund road rehabilitation.

Canvassing for the creation of an emergency road fund, the Senate Works Committee Chairman wondered how poorer African countries could make their roads motor able and Nigeria struggled to do the same.

Other Ministries that visited the Senate for their 2012 budget defence included the Ministries of Labour and its parastatals,

Niger Delta, and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT Administration.

Funding universities

Meanwhile, the Senate has begun the process of giving legal backing to the Nine new Federal Universities being established in various parts of the country by the central government.

At the second reading of the Bill for an Act to establish the universities and to make comprehensive provisions for their due management and administration, the law makers emphasized the need for adequate funding of the university system in the country to enable them compete favourably with the best universities in the world.

In their various contributions, the Senators decried the poor standard of the current thirty six federal, thirty six state and about nine privately owned universities in Nigeria and called for adequate funding to enable carry out their activities accordingly.

The bills were referred to the Senate Committee on Education for final legislative action before their passage into law.

Ugo