FG seeks N921.4bn to complete 195 road projects
 |
| Minister of Works, Mr. Mike Onolememen |
The Minister of Works, Mr. Mike Onolememen, said this on Wednesday while briefing State House correspondents on the outcome of the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by President Goodluck Jonathan.
Onolememen addressed the journalists in company with the Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku; Minister of State for Works, Ambassador Bashir Yuguda; and Managing Director, Federal Roads Maintenance Agency, Mr. Gabriel Amuchi.
Onolememen had earlier presented the challenges and achievements of his ministry in 2012 to the council.
He said all the ongoing road projects had a total portfolio of N1.3tn.
The breakdown of the ongoing projects as given by the minister showed that 31 are located in the North Central; 30 in the North East; 23 in the North West; 40 in South East; 34 in South-South; and 37 in South West.
“Out of this total portfolio size of ongoing projects that has been put at N1.397tn, a total of about N523.6bn has been certified and only about N475.5bn has been paid, leaving a balance of about N921.4bn of that portfolio; which means that cumulatively unto the time that the portfolio is completed, we will be requiring about N921.4bn to complete all the 195 ongoing projects in the country,” he said.
Onolememen said N143.5bon was budgeted for capital projects for his ministry in the 2012 budget, out of which N111bn was cash-backed and N110bn was spent.
He said out of the 195 projects, the ministry had prioritised 80 and succeeded in completing 32.
The minister said the ministry got N85.5bn from the Subsidy Reinvestment Programme during the year under review, adding that the sum was expended on six projects.
Onolememen added that since it had become obvious that the nation could not fund all the projects from only budgetary provisions, the ministry had come up with a new initiative with multilateral agencies to join in funding the projects, in addition to the Public-Private Partnership arrangement.
The minister said, “Nigeria has a total road network of 200,000 kilometres owned by federal, state and local governments. Only about 65,000 kilometres of the 200,000 kilometres are paved, mostly in bituminous layers.
“Of these, the Federal Government owns about 35,000 kilometres, representing 54 per cent of the entire bituminous road network in Nigeria. The balance is shared between the 36 states and 774 local government areas. A total of 651 kilometres of roads was paved in bituminous layers in 2012.”
Onolemenen observed that despite the increase in the number of vehicles plying Nigerian roads from 150,000 in 1983 to 1.3 million in 2000 and nine million in 2012, the total kilometres of bituminous roads in the country did not witness any appreciable increase to meet the demand.
This, he said, had led to increased pressure on the nation’s roads coupled with the non-availability of rail transportation for haulage in the past 20 years.
Meanwhile, Maku said the Federal Government had commenced moves to reconcile all professionals in the nation’s health sector.
The minister said the council discussed the outcome of a ministerial committee set up for that purpose.
He said the government was concerned about the acrimony among professionals in the health sector, which oftentimes led to disruption of work and antecedent loss of lives.
Maku said, “A ministerial committee was set up to look at the problem. The Minister of Health presented the report and council discussed the recommendations. After looking at the report critically, FEC felt there was the need for more work because government’s intervention must be broad based and result-oriented.
“The council decided that a committee of a highly experienced people should work on the report. The committee, which will soon be composed, will have its members visit different countries that have similar format with that of Nigeria.”
The Punch
