Group Chief Executive Officer, GCEO of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd, NNPCL, Mele Kyari has led top officials of the National Oil Company and other stakeholders on an inspection tour of the N621bn road projects being implemented by the Company across the country.
Gatekeepers News reports that Kyari commenced the inspection tour with a trip to Niger State where he assessed the reconstruction of Bida Lambata road in the state.
The road which commenced from Lambata town passing through Lapai – Agaie and terminating at Bida is 124.81km long.
This is one of the critical road infrastructure currently being funded by the NNPC Ltd under the Federal Government road infrastructure tax credit scheme.
In October 2021, NNPC Ltd expressed interest to invest in the reconstruction of selected federal roads to sustain a smooth supply and distribution of petroleum products across the country.
The road construction project is funded by the NNPC through the Federal Inland Revenue Service in accordance with President Muhammadu Buhari’s executive order 007.
Under the programme, the NNPC will construct a total of 1,804.6 kilometres of roads at a total cost of N621,237,143,897.35.
In December 2021, the NNPC presented the symbolic cheque of N621bn to the Ministry of Works and Housing for the construction of 21 selected roads across the country.
A breakdown of the project funding showed that the North-Central geo-political zone got the highest chunk of N244.87bn for the construction of 791.1 kilometres of roads.
The North-Central is made up of Benue, Federal Capital Territory, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger, and Plateau State.
On the other hand, the South-South geo-political zone, which emerged as the second highest beneficiary of the NNPC Road Infrastructure Development and Refurbishment project was awarded N172.02bn for a total of 81.9 kilometres of road.
The zone is made up of Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross-River, Delta, Edo, and Rivers states.
The South-West comes next with a total allocation of N81.87bn for the construction of 252.7 kilometres of roads.
The region is made up of Ekiti, Lagos, Osun, Ondo, Ogun, and Oyo States.
Also, the NNPC allocated the sum of N56.12bn to the North-East for the construction of 273.35 kilometres of roads under the scheme.
The states expected to be covered under these zones are Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba, and Yobe.
For the South-East geo-political zone, the sum of N43.28bn was earmarked for the construction/rehabilitation of 122 kilometres of road.
The zone is made up of five states and they are Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo.
Further breakdown of the NNPC schedule showed that the North-West geo-political zone which is made up of Kaduna, Katsina, Kano, Kebbi, Sokoto, Jigawa, and Zamfara got the least allocation.
The zone was allocated the sum of N23.05bn for the rehabilitation of 283.5 kilometres of road.
