On Infrastructure Fund
THE Federal Government’s announcement of its intention to set up a fund for infrastructure, to facilitate easy funding of critical areas of the economy, especially power and roads is certainly a good idea. Although details are yet to be made known, it was stated that the new policy would be contained in a document that would guide the current Federal Government during its tenure. Laudable as this is, it also throws up questions on existing policies and the past efforts of government to address, in particular, the challenges of funding roads in Nigeria. Therefore, it is appropriate to sound an alarm about a possible policy somersault and that all appropriate previous attempts to fund infrastructure should be studied and incorporated into the new plan to ensure success.
In the power reforms already implemented the Federal Government is responsible for generation and transmission while the marketing is handled by the electricity distribution companies nationwide. The responsibility of government, however, requires heavy capital outlays beyond the ability of conventional funding sources, hence the need for a far-sighted and comprehensive plan.
It is note-worthy that the federal road network of about 35,000 kilometres had been rightly denoted national assets, qualifying for inclusion in the all-important conference organised in September 2013 by the office of the National Security Adviser and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps, on the protection of Critical National assets. These also include power installations, the Power Distribution Network, Oil Pipelines, Waterways, and the road network. In a country where the road accounts for the movement of more than 90 per cent of people, goods and services and the sector is also of strategic importance for the movement of troops, roads are indeed of national security importance.
The road, however, is the only transport mode without its own semi-autonomous government-controlled agency. The history of attempts to set up such a road agency stands out as one of the most serious indictments of lack of continuity in government policy proposals, since the idea first came to light in 1970. From that time, the effort has been sustained for setting up a Federal Roads Authority and the National Road Fund to harness funds for road planning, construction, maintenance and management. The existing proposals are based on the principles of true federalism, with requirements for each state to set up the State Roads Authority and the equivalent agency in all the 774 Local Government areas in the country. The National Road Fund would be stated percentages between the three tiers of government.
In tandem with the calls for setting up these institutions, instead of the task force approach often favoured during military administrations and which has been carried over into the current democracy, the present Federal Government should implement the subsisting decisions on setting up the organs. The announcement of the Federal Government in 2013, that the implementation of the road reform initiatives will engender consistent funding for roads and eliminate the duplication of roles by the Federal Highways Department and the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency was welcome but should be backed now with action. The existing structure is wasteful; consisting of Federal Controllers and FERMA’s State Maintenance Engineer for every state; backed by Federal Highways offices in each of the six geo-political zones.
The Umar Yar’Adua administration sent the Bill for the National Road Fund to the National Assembly in 2009, but shamefully it has been abandoned for so long. Why was this Bill not one of the 46 bills passed in by the Senate in the dying hours of its tenure? It is a historical fact that no civilian minister (responsible for roads) has been enthusiastic about the establishment of the Federal Roads Authority. The minister who made the announcement in 2013 was expected to break away from this norm and save the nation the shortsighted attitude of resisting what previous holder of that office considered a reduction of ministerial turf. But, alas, this never was. The present administration must, therefore, be mindful of this and do the right thing.
Commendable as the intention to set up the Special Fund for Infrastructure is, the Presidency should give a clear directive to the in-coming minister (who would be charged with responsibility for roads) to ensure the establishment of the National Road Fund and the Federal Roads Authority. This will be a relief to the Federal Government as it would end the total reliance on extractions from yearly budgets and make for tapping into available road-user contributions for the funding of road development and management in Nigeria.
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1 Comments
A dedicated federal road and rail agency, with dedicated funding would be a good thing for Nigeria. the dedicated funding should be progressive design to encompass road user and other user, as well as grow with the road usage demand. The best sources of this funds are vehicle registration and fuel sale.
We will review and take appropriate action.