Umahi said the President has directed that rehabilitation work commence immediately on the roads for more accessible and smoother movement of men and goods to save quality man-hours lost due to the poor state.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has approved the rehabilitation of dilapidated federal roads across the country.
In a statement on Monday in Abuja, the Minister of Works, Senator Dave Umahi, said the President is aware of the state of the Nigerian road infrastructure, which he inherited from the Muhammadu Buhari government,
Umahi said the President has directed that rehabilitation work commence immediately on the roads for more accessible and smoother movement of men and goods to save quality man-hours lost due to the poor state.
He stated that despite inheriting an N6 trillion deficit in road infrastructure, President Tinubu is not complaining but is determined to confront the challenge headlong.
Umahi said President Tinubu has approved a 2023 Supplementary budget of ₦300b for the Ministry of Works comprising ₦100b for immediate palliative works in 36 States and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and ₦200b for continuation of most of the inherited ongoing projects and very few critical road projects.
Some of the roads include the Makurdi-Nsukka 9th Mile Road, East-West Road, Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway, Benin bypass road, collapsed bridges of Enugu- Port Harcourt road, collapsed bridges of Shandam-Plateau State, Abuja-Kaduna- Zaria-Kano road and Gombe- Bauchi among several others.
He said the President has not only given specific directives to the Ministry on how to accomplish the execution of the project within the given time frame, but he has also encouraged the public to perform their civic responsibility by following their money through supervision of the projects with appropriate feedback to the government.
He said: “Without prejudice to all the good efforts of the past administration on road infrastructure development, which they tackled within the limit of their resources, the work to be done to change the ugly state of our roads is quite enormous.
“Mr. President is not complaining of the challenges he inherited in nearly all sectors of the economy, especially as it concerns our road infrastructure, but he is quite courageous as he had promised to tackle the problems head-on, which he has started to do not minding the debt burden inherited especially the funding gap of over ₦6 trillion from most of the inherited ongoing road projects.
“Mr. President has since reeled out plans of commitment, consistency, and innovations towards actualizing a sustainable road infrastructure development throughout the country.
“He has just approved a 2023 Supplementary budget of ₦300B for the Ministry of Works comprising of ₦100B for immediate palliative works in 36 States and FCT and ₦200B for the continuation of most of the inherited ongoing projects and very few new but critical road projects.
“Mr. President has directed that work in those palliative projects must commence before 1st December 2023 while observing all due process.
“On the sections being frequently complained of by the public in all regions of the North and South of the country, Mr President has equally isolated them and directed immediate actions on them and indeed, work has started on all such roads”.
Umahi, therefore, called on Nigerians to actively participate in supervising projects and providing constructive feedback to the government.
