The dry season, which typically spans November to March, has set in, bringing with it concerns about the state of Nigeria’s 195,000-kilometre road network and its significant impact on the cost of transportation for millions of commuters as well as goods, especially foodstuffs, and general cost of living.
But the Minister of Works, David Umahi, says government has reached over 85 per cent completion in the procurement and execution of 330 road palliatives and bridge repairs across the country, which is expected to reduce time and cost to destination.
This is more so against the background of the Federal Government’s removal of the troublesome fuel subsidy and the free float of the local currency, the naira, 18 months ago, which led to an upward spiral in cost of living.
Umahi’s declaration ties up with the Federal Government’s Compressed Natural Gas initiative (CNGi) which has so far converted over 100,000 vehicles in the country to the use of the cheaper CNG/bi-fuel, according to government’s spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga.
Government’s CNGi seeks to lower the cost of living for Nigerians with the prospect of an up to 75 per cent cut in fuel cost.
Much of the masterplan for road repairs connect the country’s major food belts to commercial centres where demand for food is highest.
Umahi, speaking in response to the Chairman of the House Committee on the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA), Hon. Remi Oseni, said the report of these achievements would be published soon.
Oseni had at a recent press conference criticised Umahi, saying funds were not being allocated effectively to critical road maintenance projects.
“The President has given very special attention to the Ministry of Works, and that’s why in the 2023 supplementary budget, he approved N300 billion to take care of a number of palliatives. We are going to publish what success we have achieved in those N300 billion projects,” Umahi said.
“We used it to procure over 330 roads palliatives and bridge repairs, which were properly procured and properly executed. Today, we have achieved over 85% completion. And so, when we publish it, I want him to go there if he can leave his oversighting FERMA, and he can check these projects,” he said.
Umahi also revealed that the Ministry of Works has “terminated over ten projects, following due process. Some of them have lasted 17 years, 18 years.”
The works minister said his ministry has been diligently working to improve Nigeria’s road infrastructure despite limited resources.
“We have done tremendously very well in a number of our projects. Of course, there is no amount of resources that can fix 2,604 projects in four years,” he said.
While CNG costs N213 per scm (standard cubic meter), petrol now costs in the range of N998 per litre and diesel, about N1,200 per litre, meaning CNG is less than 24 percent the cost of petrol and 17.75 per cent the cost of diesel.
The Federal Government targets to have a minimum of one million CNG vehicles on the roads for the usage of Nigerians by the year 2027.
This is as analysts say that food prices would begin to noticeably trend downwards when up to 25 per cent of the 25,000 haulage trucks (being 6,250 trucks) required to move goods across the country are CNG-powered.
Analysts further say that the downward progression in food prices would follow incrementally as the volume of CNG-powered trucks grows, reducing the burden of high food costs on the wallets of Nigerians, then freeing up disposable income for other pressing needs.
Nigeria’s roads and highways form the backbone of the country’s transport network, as these arteries handle 90 per cent of all passenger and freight traffic, according to the National Integrated Infrastructure Master Plan (NIIMP) which is the country’s blue-print for boosting and modernising the nation’s stock of infrastructure.
As it is the largest segment – contributing N2.4trn ($6.4bn) to GDP in 2020, down from N2.7trn ($7.2bn) the year before – the government is focused on both servicing existing roads – many of which had been in poor condition or unpaved – and constructing new ones.
