By Bisi Agbonhin.
Road infrastructure is critical to the overall development of any nation. This is more so in Nigeria where over ninety per cent of passengers and freight are transported by roads.
Statistics show that Nigeria has about two hundred thousand kilometres of roads, out of which thirty-five thousand kilometres are owned and managed by Federal Government. It also accounts for about seventy per cent of national vehicular and freight traffic. Today, about nine million vehicles ply Nigerian roads. Budgetary provision is made every year for maintenance of these roads and construction of new ones. But with a huge project portfolio of about 1.4 trillion Naira and outstanding commitment of about 850 million Naira, it is clear that the budgetary allocation will not meet the funding requirement of road development in the country.
However, the compelling need to have in place, motor-able roads over the years has continued to put pressure on government. This is so as record has it that only thirty per cent of federal roads is in good condition, while seventy per cent is in dire need of maintenance, rehabilitation, reconstruction and expansion.
Aware of the compelling demand, the Federal Government through the Federal Ministry of Works ensures the completion of 32 major roads. Some of the roads include Vom-Manchok road in plateau state, Yola-Numan road in Adamawa state and Katsina-Daura road in Katsina state. Others include the dual carriage from Onisha-Owerri, Eleme junction flyover in Rivers state and Gombe-Potiskum road in Gombe state as well as access road to Kaduna Refinery.
Rehabilitation of some roads was also completed last year. They include Ijebu-Igbo-Ajegunle-Ararommi-Ife-Sekona road in Osun and Ogun states, re-instatement of washout along Auchi-Okene highway in Edo state and many others across the country. There are over 190 road projects at different stages of completion which include the Loko-Oweto Bridge over River Benue.
The commitment of the President Godluck Jonathan's transformation Agenda led to the introduction of Road Sector reform team, the 'Safe Passage Project' and upgrading of some Units to full Departments in the Ministry to surmount the mounting challenges.
As an immediate and short term solution, the Ministry introduced the 'Safe Passage Project' to improve on critical routes on the Federal highways by recovering deplorable section to ameliorate the suffering of road user.
This was carried out in collaboration with the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency, FERMA. Roads identified for this project include Shagamu-Ore-Benin road dual carriage way, Onisha –Enugu dual carriage way, Abuja-Lokoja-Benin road, Kano-Maiduguri road, the Second Niger Bridge and the major repair on the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos.
In the quest to ensure supervision and completion of project within deadline, some Units in the Ministry including the public private partnership, PPP unit were upgraded to a full Department, and creation of six independent zonal offices.
The golden triangle super highway and the second Lagos outer ring road were identified for development to further bridge the huge gap in road infrastructure. The project, covering about twenty-three kilometres, is estimated to cost 960 billion Naira.
The Golden Triangle, designed to have 4-6 lanes, will connect the six Geo-political zones and other key hubs of the economic activities in the country.
One other step taken by the Ministry is the decongestion of some major highways and strategic location across the country from indiscriminate parking by heavy duty vehicles.
The Ministry has since identified modern parking areas to be developed. In addition, work has commenced on about one thousand Kilometres of roads under the Trans-Saharan road Project that will connect Nigeria to five Africa countries.
However, as laudable these initiatives may sound, funding has always been a stumbling block.
It is on record that the Ministry hardly gets full budgetary allocation. The Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen, at a forum with the National Assembly, made it clear that what is needed is about 500 billion Naira annually, for the next three years to fix the country's road infrastructure and put it at par with developed nations of the world. That is why the Ministry initiated other alternative sources of funding which include borrowing from multilateral agencies, floating of road bonds, conventional public private partnership, PPP and viable gap funding.
The SURE-P initiative has also provided a strong source of funding for road construction.
The connection between good roads and economic well being of a nation cannot be over emphasized. That is why the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan is determined to turn around the fortunes of the road sector in a way that the nation's roads network can truly serve as the economic arteries of the country.
Bisi Agbonhin, a Director of Information and Head of the Press and Public Relations of Federal Ministry of Works, Abuja, Nigeria, sent in this piece.Via: Federal Ministry of Information (FMI) Nigeria