THE Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola on Monday pushed for a legislative agenda on infrastructure in the country to ensure that road constructions are evenly spread across all States.
He made the call while receiving the newly elected Osun State Governor, Adegboyega Oyetola at the Ministry’s headquarters in Abuja.
The Minister said this became imperative to ensure that the project plan of any State governor is in tandem with plans of legislators in the State.
He noted that the legislative Agenda if accepted, will quicken infrastructural deliveries by the Federal Government (FG) as the resources have been included in the budgets after the thorough screening on needs assessment and benefits of such infrastructure by both the legislatures and the Governor.
While making his recommendations, he explained that; “I am glad that the parliamentarian is here and we must fix this. I think I will recommend, you can accept or modify that each State in this country must have a legislative agenda on infrastructure.
“What are the important roads to you because every year we get fixed on a budget which based on the resources the country can reasonably generate within that framework, legislators want certain constituency projects but that is not what the Governor wants, but the certain pool of funds comes to a State.
“So if there is a common legislative agenda that this is the most important road for our State this year maybe that is what becomes everybody’s constituency project and we put all the resources coming to State A into that. It is something that may not be perfect, but it’s something that we can refine.
He further disclosed that the current administration is constructing 365 roads across the country stating that 121 of these roads were initiated within three years.
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His words: “In terms of roads the major issue has been funding, the budget we met for Nigerian roads was under N20 billion and that was at a time when Nigeria was earning over $100 per barrel so we have lost opportunities as a country and those who made us lose the opportunities want to come back.
“We are constructing 365 roads nationwide 121 of them were started in the 3 years of this administration 244 was what they laboured with between 2001 and 2015, they say we are slow but our runway is faster than theirs and our delivery is faster and we are still doing more with less. Mr President has mandated us that development is a commitment to all Nigerians irrespective of the state of play, irrespective of the political flag flying in these States and that is why we can confidently say that there is no state in the country that roads are not constructed.”
However, he stressed that funding was a major setback caused by budgeting and appropriation saying; “let me state here that funding challenges start with budgeting to appropriation so 2019 budget is ready, we are ready to present.
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