Road construction is impacted by budgetary allotment – Umahi

According to Minister of Works David Umahi, Nigeria’s fiscal distribution structure discourages contractors from finishing federal road projects around the nation on schedule.

Speaking at a news conference on Monday in Abuja, Umahi claimed that the yearly release of cash to contractors causes road construction to drag on for a long period. He pointed out that most of the time, the contractor receives insufficient funding to buy the supplies they need to complete their work.

According to H, the original project amount is affected by inflation, hence the delay causes further variation in the contract.”If you give a contractor N150 million a year for an N600 million road project, he will pocket it while mobilising to the site and not doing any work on the ground,” he stated.

When questioned, he will claim that not enough money was sent to obtain the materials he sought from outside the nation.Umahi, however, made a plea to the National Assembly to release the more than N650 million that was withheld for a number of national projects.

He claimed that although the projects are nearly finished, the contractors are still on the job because of a lack of funding.In order to stop kidnappings, he continued by advising Nigerians to develop the habit of planting cash crops alongside traffic corridors.”Nigerians should receive tax value.

” The route is all-important. We should clear the undergrowth and sow cash crops in the area where kidnappings are occurring because of poor roads. It is appropriate and excellent, and we ought to implement it across the nation. It’ll eliminate kidnappings,” he continued.

Even if concrete roads stay longer, he noted that contractors should not be required to build concrete roads on projects that have already been granted. Instead, he said that contractors would need to guarantee that asphalt roads would survive for up to 30 years.

“We are not going to stop working on asphalt, but we cannot afford to pay for a job that we know won’t last five years. Contractors utilise the amusing justification of overloading as a cover for their short-lived roads.

“With the exception of the one I built in Ebonyi state, concrete roads that are correctly constructed will endure for 50 years. Actually, we completed the African Development Bank-funded Abakaliki Ridgeway Road before I left the office.

He went on to say that the ministry would examine how the Federal Road Management Agency operates to make sure state governments are consulted before intervening in a state and that the routes that need the most attention are identified.Please tell this story: