October 09, (THEWILL) – Senator Gershom Bassey, the Chairman of, Senate Committee on Federal Roads Agency, FERMA, says the federal government owes the agency one trillion naira.
He said this huge debt has severely hampered the agency’s capacity to maintain federal roads across the country.
Senator Bassey made this known in Calabar while giving an account of efforts to improve the road transportation sector of the country.
Senator Bassey said a Senate investigation revealed that the agency needs 300 billion naira annually to maintain federal roads and lamented the reduction of the agency’s annual budget from 45 billion to 18 billion saying it’s an issue of prioritisation.
“We had done an investigation in this senate, where we agreed that FERMA would require a minimum of N300 billion every year just to maintain our roads.
“There was a backlog of over N1 trillion that had not been paid on the law that was passed in the senate in 2009 on FERMA.
“The budget for FERMA has been slashed to N18 billion from N45 billion it was last year, which is an issue of prioritization”, Senator Bassey said.
He added that the present Senate has proffered so many solutions to the executive on road maintenance in the short, medium and long terms.
In his words, “Some of those issues are on the President’s table for accent, issues like the Federal Road Authority, which are sustainable solutions to this road problem and I hope that he would sign and accent those bills that are on his table”, he said.
About the Author
THEWILL Correspondent, Aniekan Bassey has over six years experience that spans across several fields in print journalism including development communication, sexual reproductive and health rights issues, crime, climate change, social justice, business and human interest stories.
