Govt to prioritise completion of road projects in 2021 budget

Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has said the main thrust of the 2021 budget proposal of the ministry would be the completion of road projects in the country.

Fashola, who stated this at the budget defence session of the Adamu Aliero-led Senate Committee on Works, explained: “Given the wide disparity between their liabilities in unpaid certificates and the volume of road projects, it has become imperative for us to prioritise 2021 capital projects in order to make appreciable
impact on infrastructure.”

He said the ministry was undertaking 711 projects spread across the six geopolitical zones, as ongoing construction had been categorised according to funding mechanisms like highway projects financed with the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF), Sovereign Sukuk Fund, as well as tax credit and other facilities from multilateral institutions.

The minister further clarified that the projects financed with the Sovereign Sukuk Fund were 44 highways and bridges that benefitted from the 2020 Sovereign Sukuk issuance.

He said: “The roads were mainly dual carriageways on the major arterial routes A1 to A9 on the federal road networks and on the 2021 budget proposal. We will fo-
cus on the completion of priority road projects, especially those on routes that lead to ports and major agricultural hubs across the country.”

Fashola added: “We are going to focus on roads that have attained 70 per cent completion level. The National Assembly and Nigerians should help us to build a national consensus as to stop the agitation for new road projects, and agree on completion of ongoing road projects due to budgetary constraints.”