Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola has disclosed that the Federal Government of Nigeria is owing road contractors the sum of N765 billion as of October 2022.
Gatekeepers News reports that the Minister made the disclosure on Tuesday while defending the budget of his ministry before the House of Representatives Committee on Works.
According to Fashola, the sum of N110.5 billion was released to the ministry and utilised for payment of part of the outstanding certificates for executed works on roads and bridges in the 2022 budget.
“As of October, 2022, the ministry has cumulative unpaid certificates in the sum of N765,017,139,752.92 for ongoing highway and bridge projects,” Fashola said.
The minister lamented the inability of the country to finance its obligations and the poor allocations to projects in the budget.
He noted that there is an inadequacy of annual budget provisions where N100 million or N200 million was provided for roads costing twenty or more billion.
Fashola said the ministry needs N1.2 trillion for the execution of highway projects, but only N198.9 billion has been allocated under the budget envelope in 2023 for the roads.
However, he said despite the dire financial situation, “20 major highways projects have so far been completed in 2022 and are ready for commissioning.”
“The total cost of the completed projects is in the sum of N444,322,123,808.61 and they cover a total length of 379.677km,” he said.
Fashola also gave updates on the presidential infrastructure development fund (PIDF), sukuk funding, and the tax credit scheme.
“A total of six selected critical projects are being funded under the 2022 PIDF project which is managed by the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA),” he said.
