The Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola revealed at a Town Hall meeting organized to brief the public on the activities of the government in the last 11 months that the Federal Government would need nothing less than N2trn to complete 226 ongoing road projects in the country.
He, however, also stated that amount allocated to all the sectors under his ministry in the 2016 budget was less than N500billion. This is not nearly enough to complete all the projects at present.
With this in mind, Fashola said that the government’s gameplan was to try to finish some of the ones at hand and not start anything new.
“The Ministry of Power, Works and Housing proposed N423billion at the Federal Executive Council and the information reaching us is that we are not going to get all that. Ongoing road projects alone awarded by the government before we came— about 266 roads awarded in the various states— the liability to complete them is about N2trillion. So, when you look at N400billion, you know that that is not enough, but when you compare what this administration is going to do with the N400billion, with what the last administration did,you will know it is much progress.
“What the last administration did was to budget N18billion for all the roads in the country, knowing the liability was in excess of N2trilion. For the three sectors,that is Works, Housing and Power, the total budget by the last administration was N24.5billion. So, this administration decided to move away from that and that is why we have a figure that may not be enough, but substantial for the sectors.“
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