By Mathew Dadiya, Abuja

The Mjnister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola has attributed the inability of Federal Government to address dilapidated roads across the country to none release of budgetary funds by the ministry of finance.

Fashola explained that most contracts failed due to under budgeting and poor funding.

Speaking to State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday, he lamented that no dime has been released to his Ministry from the 2019 budget.

He lamented that his ministry hardly accessed adequate funding to perform its statutory mandate hence the littering of uncompleted and abandoned projects across the country.

The mjnister’s explanation came amidst claims by the National Assembly, that about 20,000 abandoned projects litter the country.

Debunking the allegation Fashola recalled that when the Buhari administration came into power in 2015, it concentrated on completing all abandoned projects rather than initiating new ones so as not to forestall development, adding that only N18billion was allocated for works in 2015 budget.

He said that the decision has seen the government making efforts to complete ongoing road contracts left behind by its predecessors despite budgetary constraints.

Fashola said while the public misconstrued the challenges, the progress that has been made seems delayed because some of the projects including newly initiated ones suffered set back due to lack of community support, over-blotted compensation sums submitted by the public and lean budgetary provisions which, most times were not even accessible.

He said that despite these constraints, government never felt deterred, it has been reviewing cost of on-ongoing and abandoned projects to make them viable for completion.

“Today, two of the approvals were to revise the estimates of cost to enable contractors continue work.

“Council approved N519 million revision of contract of Oba – Nnewi – Okigwe Road to cater for change in cost of materials since the project was awarded in 2009. The contract sum revised from N3.7billion to N4.3 billion.

“The second contract that had a revision of estimated cost, is the 67 kilometers Alace-Ugep road in Cross River state, Council approved a revision from N9.16 billion to 11.22 billion, the revised cost is N2.052 billion.

“Council approved the change of contractor for the Chachangi bridge linking Takum and Wukari in Taraba State and re-awarded it at the cost of N2.132 billion.

“Katsina-Ala bridge was also approved at the cost of N3.576 billion, which include total bridge repairs, changing of expansion joints, changing of bearings and rehabilitation of the 3.2 kilometers access road at Ugbema junction in Benue State,” the Minister explained.

The minister further disclosed that despite the increased budgetary provision for the ministry of works from N18 billion in 2015 to about N300bn in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, ”we still can’t find the money to implement the projects, we need community support as well.”

He also lamented that the ministry wasc faced with a challenge of over N10 billion compensation for the second Niger bridge.

”There is a very clear distinction doing a project that is uncompleted and a project that is abandoned. They mean two different things. If you ask me you say there is a report about 20000 abandoned projects, my ministry doesn’t have 20000 projects.

”One of the things we have done including what we have done today finding out why projects have not been completed in some cases the rates have become obsolete so the price of cement has changed, the exchange rate has changed, inflation has gone into the quantities in which it was awarded before we came. So we are trying to resuscitate some of those projects because we know that the contractors will not go back to work if the pricing is not right, that is one thing we are doing. 

”It is the government policy to ensure that we complete as many projects as possible. Unlike in the past, this government has focused on completing projects. 

”In addition to that, we have increased the budget size so the budget size for all of the Nigerian roads in 2015 was N18 billion. So those are accumulations that we now have to manage and overcome was as a result of under budgeting and under funding. 

”Now there is a distinction, we have increased the budget to roughly about N300 billion but we still can’t fund the N300 billion. 

”So when we get the approval that is the one half of the story, the other half of the story is that we don’t get all of the cash. So your investigation must include how much is being released against how much is being approved in the budget 

”There is yet another problem, the local communities, we are having problems there too. We have problem I think in Sapele-Ewu road, youths, community, compensation issues. Immediately we mobilize to site, people build all sorts of things within the right of way and file all sorts of claims for compensation. 

”When you look at how much you have to pay for compensation and how much you have to spend on the roads you begin to do your maths very carefully. So we need community support as well. 

”People who want infrastructure must also reasonably be willing to sacrifice. The amount we are facing now in claims in compensation for Second Niger Bridge is already in excess of N10 billion, just for compensation for land and all of that. 

”Now you hear the Minister of Finance, you hear everybody saying we need to raise money to fund infrastructure; there is a gap between our infrastructure needs, our commitments to respond and our income. So we have to fund a deficit. 

On one hand there is another side of the debate that is saying the country is borrowing too much so these are the challenges.”