FG road constructions suffers as contractors stop work over funding

Despite the Federal Government’s N84.54bn budgetary allocations from 2017 to 2019 for road construction, work on many major roads in the six geopolitical zones of the country has stopped.

Investigations showed that contractors stopped work on many of the projects because of poor funding by the Federal Government.

It was gathered that where contractors had not abandoned road projects, the pace of work was very slow.

A top official of the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, who confided in one of our correspondents on Sunday, stated that work was not ongoing on some of the roads due to funding challenges.

“Some contractors are not on site because they are sorting out funding issues with the ministry. You can remember that there was a call recently for additional funds in order to bridge the funding gap required for the rehabilitation of roads,” the source said.

The Ogun State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, had, in September, said the state and Lagos State had sought the Federal Government’s approval to take over the Lagos-Abeokuta road project.

He had said with the Federal Government’s approval, the road would be constructed under a private-public sector arrangement.

Abiodun had stated, “There is a debt of  N26bn hanging on that road. The servicing of that road is exceeding N1bn every year and that road will never be completed by this government and it is because of the paucity of fund at the federal level.”

A check showed that from 2017 to 2019, the Federal Government budgeted only  N1.2bn for the Lagos-Abeokuta road.

The Deputy Director of  Press in the  Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, Stephen Kilebi,  told one of our correspondents on the telephone on Sunday that the contract for the Ikot-Ekpene-Aba road had just been awarded to the CGGC construction company.

He said, “The Aba-Ikot Ekpene road contract has just been awarded to the CGGC, and for the Lagos-Abeokuta road, the contractor there is Julius Berger Nigeria Plc.

“But they (Julius Berger) are not on site for now because of some funding challenges that they need to sort out with the ministry.”

The Minister of Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, had, during a visit of  the Public Transport Owners of Nigeria Association to his office on December 10, said the Federal Government owed road contractors  N306bn.

He said between 2015 and 2018, “the entire amount we got was not up to N1tn  in actual cash in this ministry.”

Fashola had stated, “The budget, yes! But not all budgets are funded. So, if we had N1tn to spend on Nigerian roads, we would be in a much better position. As of October, we were owing contractors N306bn and more bills are coming in and all we got was N73bn.”