The Senate and House of Representatives are
squaring up to Works, Housing and Power
Minister Babatunde Fashola over allegation that
the legislature messed up the ministry’s 2017
budget.
They described the minister’s allegation as wrong
information, half truth and blackmail.
Fashola, last week, accused the lawmakers of
slashing his ministry’s appropriation for some
critical projects, and at the same time
introducing 100 new projects to the 200
uncompleted ones he inherited from the
Jonathan administration.
The first response came from the Senate whose
spokesman, Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, said Fashola did
not give the public full details about the Lagos-
Ibadan Expressway.
Abdullahi said the project commenced as a
private finance initiative whereas the minister
prefers an arrangement that allows the Ministry
to continue to award contracts and fund the
project through government budgetary allocation
at a time when the nation’s revenue is dwindling.
According to him, the Bureau of Public
Procurement, and the Federal Executive Council
in 2013, approved the reconstruction,
rehabilitation and expansion of the Lagos-Ibadan
expressway as a Public Private Partnership
project using the Private Finance Initiative, with
the Federal Government providing about 30
percent of the funding while the balance shall be
provided by the private sector.
The project was on course for completion by end
of 2017 when the private finance initiative was
being implemented, with over 30 percent
completion rate attained as at early 2015.
Abdullahi further noted that in a blatant disregard
for existing agreements, constituted authorities
and extant laws, Fashola on assumption of office
got government through the Ministry to start
voting money for the implementation of the
project.
“Even as at last year the 2016 Appropriation Act
voted N40 billion for the project on the
insistence of the Ministry and only N26 billion
was released. If we had known, the rest N14
billion could have been allocated to other critical
roads across the country”, he said.
He added: “In the spirit of consensus building
and effective stakeholder engagement, the
leadership of the Senate met with key relevant
stakeholders, including the Ministries of Works
and finance.
“It was agreed that we should give the Private
Finance Initiative a chance to complement
government’s resources in the delivery of critical
infrastructure assets across the country. Hence,
in this year’s budget, we have engaged with the
Government and private sector groups who have
assured that they will resume funding of the
project.
“So, we only provided the fund in the budget that
would ensure work does not stop before the
funds from the private sector start coming in
.What we reduced from Lagos-Ibadan
Expressway in the 2017 budget estimate was
spread on Oyo-Ogbomoso road in the South-west,
Enugu-Onitsha road in the South-East, and two
other critical roads in the North-East and North-
West; and this was done to achieve equity. The
Minister should realise he is Minister for the
entire country and not just that of Lagos State.
“It is our view that the Federal Government
cannot fund the reconstruction and maintenance
of all the 34,000 kilometres of roads under its
care. We are looking for private funds for some
of these roads, particularly those with high
potentials of attracting private investors. These
include the Enugu-Onitsha road, Kano-Abuja road
and Abuja-Lokoja road. It has been our hope that
the Lagos -Ibadan road would be a model for
private sector funding of infrastructure in the
country.”
The Senator said Fashola’s statement was in
bad taste and should “desist from spreading half-
truths.”
“When he said the National Assembly imported
projects into the 2017 budget, he did not mention
that these include the 26 projects which the
Federal Government approved in the 2016
budget, awarded contract for them in January
2016, but totally omitted them in the 2017
budget. One of them is the Abuja-Kaduna road.
These ones would have become abandoned
projects. We reduced funds across board to
make provision for these omitted projects that
are of critical importance to the socio-economic
development of the country in line with equity
and fair play.”
For its part, the House of Representatives said
Fashola’s remarks were meant to paint the
National Assembly as an irresponsible institution,
“one not concerned with the welfare of the
people, and set the Executive and Legislature on
an unnecessary collision course on matters of
power rather than issues that benefit the
Nigerian people.”
House Spokesman, Abdulrazaq Namdas said ”
the decision to redistribute the projects proposed
by the ministry was in order to ensure an even
spread of projects across all regions, which the
proposal of the executive had failed to do.
“Considering that the funds that were allocated
for the second Niger Bridge in 2016 were
returned untouched at the end of the year, the
National Assembly decided to reduce N5 billion
from the 2017 Budget for 2nd Niger Bridge to
fund other projects from the South East, leaving
N7 billion for the second Niger Bridge.
“The truth is that in the 2016 Budget, N12 billion
was appropriated for the second Niger Bridge
and not a kobo was spent by the Ministry. Not a
kobo. The money was returned. The Ministry
could not provide the Committees of the
National Assembly with evidence of an
agreement on the Public Private Partnership
(PPP) or a contract for the 2nd Niger Bridge.
“The projects include – N2.5 billion extra for
Enugu/Onitsha Road, N1 billion more for 9th
Mile/Nsukka/Makurdi Road; additional N500m for
Oturkpa- Makurdi to take care of evacuation of
agricultural produce up to Maiduguri; N1 billion
more for Ikot Ekpene-Aba-Owerri Road etc.
These are strategic Roads in the South-East and
North Central parts of Nigeria that had
inadequate allocations.
“The National Assembly had to intervene to fund
some other critical roads that were totally
neglected in the Executive Budget proposal,
including the Abuja- Kaduna – Zaria – Kano
Road that had Zero allocation from the
President’s proposal and no contract, even in
spite of due process certification.
“N5 billion was provided in the 2016 Budget. It
was not utilised. In 2017 Budget, the National
Assembly again provided N3 billion for this very
critical road that connects many states and
where incidents of kidnapping are rife because
of bad roads, as we believe that all parts of
Nigeria deserve attention or would the Minister
also claim that this road has no design?”
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