We’re going into 2020 with an infrastructural funding crisis

Over the last three years, the Federal Government has budgeted nearly 90 billion Naira for capital road projects across the country. In the same time, countries like Ethiopia and Algeria have completed similar road projects that have increased vehicular mobility and improved trade options in their country. In Nigeria, many of the projects begun with this allocation have been abandoned by the construction firms who won the bids to execute these projects. These firms claim, according to an investigation by the PUNCH newspapers,  that while the government officially disbursed these funds, the firms have remained underfunded and incapable of executing.

The official statement from the government is that the budgets estimated for these projects have proven largely inadequate, and currently the Federal government is owing contractors an estimated 306 billion Naira in back payments. It is such a problem that state governments are stepping in and taking the burden of constructing and maintaining federal roads from the Federal Government. With budgets like 1.2 billion naira for the maintenance of the Lagos-Abeokuta road over the course of three years, it almost feels like the government has no real understanding of what is stake.

Will 2020 be the year that Nigerian road infrastructure gets a boost?

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 by The PUNCH 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.”