Bad Roads: FERMA Poorly Funded, Needs Higher Budgetary Allocation, Says National Assembly

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

Members of the Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) have said that the intervention agency is poorly funded and have therefore advocated increased annual budgetary allocation to the organisation.

A statement in Abuja by the Director of Communication and Public Relations, FERMA, Maryam Sanusi, quoted the Chairman, Senate Committee on FERMA, Senator Hussaini Uba, as making the remark during a joint sitting at a presentation of the FERMA 2023 performance and 2024 budget defence.

The chairman said FERMA could not meet up with the people’s expectation of making all roads passable and safe for users because the annual budgetary allocation to the agency falls grossly below what it needs to carry out its mandate of maintaining federal roads across the nation.

He added that the poor condition of federal roads across the country was unimaginable and called for urgent attention to ameliorate the suffering of road users.

However, he said that FERMA was doing a good job within the limited resources available to it, but that it was not being appreciated because the little it’s able to do only affects a small percentage of the people.

Uba enjoined FERMA to invest more in stakeholders’ engagement and on publicity to enable its achievements, challenges and aspirations be heard and appreciated by the general public.

He also encouraged FERMA to effectively communicate its progress and challenges to the lawmakers to enable them remain on the same page.

Also Speaking, the Managing Director of FERMA, Dr. Chukwuemeka Agbasi, during the presentation, said the roads selected for the 2024 capital budget proposal were based on equitable distribution on the basis of the six geopolitical zones of the country.

“Priorities were given to major trunk ‘A’ roads within the zones that would key into President Bola Tinubu’s priority areas of national development and economic recovery as well as roads that would massively improve movement of persons, goods, services and agricultural produce to boost food security and economic wellbeing of the citizen,” he said.

He added that the 2024 budget included the rollover of some projects with completion period exceeding the 2023 fiscal year to ensure 100 per cent execution.

According to the statement, a total of N77.3 billion proposal was presented by the managing director to the joint committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The breakdown included: Total personnel–N4,081,099,53; overhead– N22,027,209,696; recurrent–N26,108,309,229, while total capital, which is meant for the maintenance of the over 36,000 kilometres of federal roads was N51,282,456,911.

“Other members of the joint committee took turns to comment and all agreed with the poor state of the roads, poor funding of FERMA and an improved and increased budgetary allocation for FERMA. They also asked for exploration of alternative funding for FERMA.

“Going forward, the committees pledged the support and cooperation with FERMA to enable it carry out its work effectively,” the statement noted.