Reps grill works minister on collapsed federal roads

Minister of Works, Mr Mike Onolememen
| credits:

Members of the House of Representatives on Monday grilled the Minister of Works, Mr. Mike Onolememen,  over the “near-collapse of federal roads” and said the situation had reached a national emergency.

Onolememen  had appeared before the House Committee on Works conducting a public hearing on the deplorable state of federal roads and the “urgent need to address” the problem.

After applauding the minister for a “brilliant” presentation on a road map for road development in the country, the members said the road map was more of a paper work, as Nigerians had yet to feel the impact.

The Chairman of the Committee, Mr. Ogbuefi Ozomgbachi, for instance, noted that over N80bn was voted for roads in the 2012 budget, but only 50 per cent of the money had been utilised.

“This is a serious matter. Is it a problem of lack of capacity to utilise the funds or it is administrative bottlenecks?”, he asked.

Members also listed eight “very important federal roads” in the country, which they said showed no signs of improvement in spite of consistent assurances by government.

Among the roads are the Benin-Ore-Shagamu Expressway, Abuja-Lokoja Road, Enugu-Onitsha-Road, and Kano-Maiduguri Road.

Besides Ozomgbachi, others who grilled the minister were Mr. Fort Dike, Mr. Mohammed Wudil, Mr. Bimbo Daramola and Mr. Chris Ettan.

However, the minister denied that lack of capacity or corruption was responsible for the poor state of the roads.

He blamed part of the problem on the late release of funds for the roads.

According to him, the eight roads highlighted by lawmakers are tied to the Subsidy Re-Investment Programme.

Onolememen claimed that the “disbursement of SURE-P funds did not start until about July-August.”

He explained that so long as funding from SURE-P was sustained, the roads would be delivered by 2015.

For 2012, he told the committee that despite the late release of funds, between 85 and 95 per cent of the budget would be utilised before December 31.

He added, “The Kano-Maiduguri Road is one of the roads that have been greatly impacted and we are working round the clock to ensure that all the roads progress according to plans.”

The minister stated that of the 168 roads he inherited, 18 had been completed.

He, however, did not mention the roads or their location.

He informed the committee that work on 24 others was almost completed.

Onolememen, who admitted that there was a shortage of road infrastructure in Nigeria, said the country’s 65,000- kilometre road network was grossly inadequate.

He noted that this was a far cry from America’s, which has over 6 million-kilometre road network.

The minister added that it was for this reason that government plans to expand the road network by 5,000 additional kilometres in collaboration with the private sector.