GEJ’s Administration Owed Road Contractors – Fashola

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola has said that the Goodluck Jonathan led administration owes road contractors billions of Naira.

Speaking at the inaugural edition of the “Buharimeter” town hall meeting in Abuja, Fashola said road contractors, who executed federal government’s road projects over the past three years were not paid for their job.

In his words, “As far as my ministry is concerned, I think the best way to understand where we are is where we came from.”

Continuing, he said, ‘If you look at the budget of the country from 2007, a country that was making a minimum of $100 per barrel for almost a decade, we shouldn’t be here. But the reality is that in 2007 we spent only N41 billion on roads in Nigeria. The highest we spent between 2007 and 2015 was in 2009 when we spent N195 billion on roads.

‘After that the figures started declining, and the last three years are significant, today I mentioned where we are, we spent N65 billion on roads, I think Lagos state government alone spent as much if not more on roads.

‘In 2014, we spent N45 billion on roads, for the whole country. And we spent N18 billion on roads in 2015. Now the fallout of meetings with our contractors, generally, is that they have not been paid for three years. But budgets have been made for the last three years,’ Fashola revealed.

However, the former Lagos State Governor has disclosed that he has had a meeting with the contractors and they are willing to take his words to commence work on the Jebba-Ilorin road as well as the Lagos-Ibadan expressway.

‘Our contractors will go back to site on Monday next week, they told me, for the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. They haven’t been paid. But that is what ‘change’ is, that this government is credible and believable. If we say we will pay, we will pay,’ he assured.

This is coming on the heels of the Minister’s denial of being overwhelmed with the three major ministries he has been saddled with in the President Buhari led administration.