Nigeria needs N3trn to address road infrastructural deficit— COREN

Enugu-Onitsha-Expressway

COUNCIL for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, COREN, yesterday said the country required about N3 trillion to address the huge road infrastructural deficit.

National President of COREN, Kasim Ali, disclosed this in the position paper presented at the public hearing on the repeal of Federal Roads Maintenance Agency Act N7 LFN 2002 and establishment of the Federal Roads Authority bill, 2016 and National Roads Fund Establishment bill, held at the instance of House Committee on Works, chaired by Toby Okechukwu. Ali, who expressed support for the proposed bills, noted that the current institutional framework for the management and funding of roads in Nigeria was outdated, inappropriate and needed to be reformed.

While stressing the need for sustainable funding mechanism of road projects in the country, he called for improved autonomy in road management. Ali also noted that the “establishment of the National Roads Fund, which will be a repository for revenues accruing from road-user related charges for financing, development, rehabilitation, maintenance and other activities related to the provision of national roads, would promote an effective road management system in Nigeria.”

Speaking at the public hearing, Babatunde Fashola, Minister of Works, Power and Housing, who applauded the initiative, called for consolidation of the five legislative framework regulating the road sectors into one, stressing that multiple of laws and regulatory agencies would discourage investors.(Vanguard)