The House of Representatives has urged the Federal Ministries of Budget and Economic Planning, Finance and Budget Office of the Federation to allocate 20% of the Ministry of Works budget for the 2025 appropriation to the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) to enable it to function effectively.
This was in addition to the adoption of a motion moved by the member representing Ido /Ibarapa Federal Constituency of Oyo state, Hon. Aderemi Oseni (APC), at plenary on Tuesday.
Moving the motion, Oseni expressed worry that most Federal Roads were in disrepair, dilapidated, and unpassable, causing economic loss to governments and citizens due to continuous neglect.
He said FERMA, the agency with the mandate to maintain and rehabilitate all federal roads across the country, has been doing its best with the paltry budgetary allocation it receives annually, which cannot make any significant impact due to the large number of roads across the country that needed urgent repairs and rehabilitation.
The lawmaker raised the alarm that the inadequate funding of FERMA translated to outright neglect in the maintenance of the roads, as an average of N300 billion to N500 billion was required annually to maintain the federal roads.
“Sadly, the annual budget of FERMA is a meagre sum of about 25 billion Naira to 50 billion Naira within the last two years, which is about 10% of the required amount.
“The Federal Ministry of Works in the 2024 budget have about one trillion Naira thus the need to allocate 20% (per cent) of the Ministry of Works budget to FERMA in the 2025 budget estimates to enable FERMA to fulfil the purpose of its establishment of maintenance of existing roads,” he added.
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