Members of the House of Representatives Committee on Works chaired by Hon Akin Alabi on Thursday unveiled plans to conduct a public hearing on the use of cement for road construction across the country.
Hon Alabi who gave the hint during the inaugural meeting of the Standing Committee held at the National Assembly Complex, Abuja, commended President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the 10th Assembly’s Speaker, Hon. Tajudeen Abbas for their commitment towards infrastructural development.
While assuring Nigerians of the Committee’s resolve to ensure effective oversight of the Ministry responsible for Works and its parastatals save those assigned to other committees as well as the annual budget estimates, he affirmed that the “Committee in this 10th Assembly needs to be much more proactive considering the myriads of challenges on our road infrastructure.
“As most of you must have watched with keen interest, the revelations coming from the Honorable Minister of Works from his tour of various roads projects across the country, I have no doubt that our job is well cut out for us.
“As a parliament of the people, our intervention is very crucial to ensure that we ameliorate the sufferings of our people on the roads.
“As a committee, we must come up with legislation, policies and interventions that will improve the situation on our road infrastructure.
“On every sitting day in the House, the committee receives nothing less than 2 to 3 referrals on motions from members drawing attention to roads infrastructure in their constituency calling for attention.
“There is no doubt that the situation of our road infrastructure is highly deplorable. That is why we need to swing into action immediately.
“Though the last government carried out some initiatives, policies and interventions on road infrastructure, we need to review some of these ideas and determine their work-ability or effectiveness in addressing our general concerns.
“During the last administration, the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) managed by the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) and the Highway Management Development Initiative (HDMI) under the guidance of Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) were among several initiatives employed to improve road infrastructure.
“In line with the Legislative Agenda of this 10th Assembly, this committee will collaborate effectively with the Ministry of Works and its agencies to promote interventions that will bring about rapid transformation on our roads.
“We welcome all the new innovative ways that will make our roads more durable, so we will ensure to work with research agencies that will present viable solutions to improve the construction process.
“We have also heard from the executive, via the media on new ways fo use concrete for the construction of highways as opposed to the old method of using asphalt, as a committee that ensures transparency, we are calling for a public hearing on this very important issue and will invite stakeholders from the public and private sector.
“This is the inaugural meeting of this committee. I chose to have this today because we have fo hit the ground running. Already, we have made requests for the submission of documents to enhance our oversight on the agencies under us. If is my belief that by the time we go through the submissions, we would be able to fashion out how to proceed,” Hon Alabi noted.
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