By Francis Ogwo
About N55.5billion has been proposed by the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) for maintenance of roads across Nigeria in 2021.
This was disclosed on Tuesday by the Managing Director of FERMA, Nurudeen Rafindadi, while appearing before the Senate Committee on FERMA chaired by Senator Gershon Bassey to defend the 2021 budget estimates of the agency.
According to Rafindadi, N38.2 billion was proposed for capital expenditure while N17.3 billion is budgeted for recurrent expenditure and N14.9 billion as overhead, and N2.3 billion as personnel cost.
The FERMA Boss when asked by the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Gershon Bassey, to present details of ongoing projects being executed by FERMA on a state by state basis, Rafindadi said he would make the projects available to the Committee at a later date.
In his words: “We will bring the breakdown of projects being executed state by state as soon as possible and the amount earmarked for the projects across the country.
“We have N21 billion available to tackle emergency road projects which is yet to be deployed yet.
“We prioritize emergency jobs base on Ministerial prioritization for roads, we prioritize critical economic routes, the road to refineries and depots, the road through Agriculture areas, etc.” Rafindadi concluded.
Rafindadi added that roads funded through multilateral loans and internal roads in he country’s federal institutions would be priority for the agency.
