Nigeria needs 1.2 trillion naira for roads, FG allocates 198 billion naira – Fashola

Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, said Nigeria needed 1.2 trillion naira for roads and bridges, but the government was only able to provide 198, N9 billion.

Fashola, while appearing on Tuesday to defend his department's budget before the House of Representatives Works Committee, lamented the discrepancy between the cost of highways and the budget envelope provided by the government.

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He said that in some cases, FG provides 100 million naira for roads that cost more than 20 billion naira.

“There is the shortfall in annual budget provisions where N100M or N200M have been provided for roads costing twenty billion or more,” Fashola said.

Fashola said that "the actual indicative cost of delivering highway projects for 2023 is 1,256,290,524,288.32 naira, and the actual budget envelope is 198,964,003,907.00 naira", said he said.

He added that the disparity owes a huge debt to road contractors. According to Fashola, the government owes the contractors more than 700 billion naira.

“The ministry has an accumulation of unpaid certificates amounting to N765,017,139,752.92 for ongoing highway and bridge projects,” the former Governor of Lagos State said.

He informed lawmakers that the government had intervened in various tertiary institutions across the country, completing a total of 85.46 km of roads.