The federal government on Wednesday said it has approved N60 billion to rehabilitate about 165 sections of failed portions of roads and bridges across the country.
The Minister of State, Budget and National Planning, Mr Clem Agba, disclosed this during the inspection of construction work on the Benin-Auchi-Okene road project in Edo.
Agba noted that the federal government had made available N60 billion to the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) to rehabilitate failed portions on some selected sections of the roads.
“Under the federal government Economic sustainability plan, we have put out N60 billion to FERMA to work across 165 sections of roads and bridges in the country just to make some of the roads passable.
“Some of the roads targeted are the Benin-Sapele road and Benin-Asaba road and road around the NIFOR area on the bridge leading to Lagos, among others across the country, ” he said and that the funding has been provided for.
“The national monitoring and evaluation office reports to me and I do not believe in seeing everything on paper, I need to go round and see things for myself.
“I may not be able to go round each because we have more than 10,000 projects across the country but I just pick and inspect. Last week I was in Imo and Enugu; so it’s part of the job.
“Sitting down in the office and watch the world go round might be very dangerous. So if we observe anything wrong as we move around, it can be addressed before its gets too late,” he said.
The minister noted the the road project when completed was expected to reduce road accidents and ensure safety of lives and property and ease transportation.
“We have also embarked on rural agrarian road progamme where we are connecting roads to agrarian communities,” Agba added.
According to the minister, these targeted roads for rehabilitation will also give farmers that opportunity to take food from Edo to other parts of the country.
