The minister of Works, Arch. Mike Onolememen, has revealed that the non-release of N230billion 2014 budgetary allocation for various critical projects has stalled the completion of the projects.
Onolememen made the disclosure yesterday during the 2014/2015 budget defence before the House of Representatives Committee on Works chaired by Hon. Ogbuefi Ozomgbachi.
He noted that the ministry and various parastatals under it like the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) were incapacitated by the poor release of annual budgetary allocation due to them.
Out of the non-released allocation, N219.5billion is for highway projects, N10billion is for engineering design and supervision consultants while N1.2billion is for weigh bridge, materials and geotechnical contracts.
According to him, the sum of N45.682billion (46.2 per cent) was released out of the N98.814billion appropriated as the capital expenditure for the main ministry and its parastatals, leaving the balance of N53,131,524,309 as at December 30, 2014.
“It is important to emphasize that the performance of the ministry would have been considerably enhanced if the outstanding budgeted funds of N53,131,524,309 billion had been released to the ministry.
More importantly, if the cumulative outstanding budgeted funds of N203,392,075,947.25 for the period spanning 2011 to 2014 had been released, the total indebtedness would have been brought down from N230 to N27 billion,” the minister said.
Speaking earlier, chairman of the committee, Hon Ozomgbachi, stressed the need for alternative funding of critical projects considering the dwindling oil revenue.
Meanwhile, Onolememen disclosed that the ministry accessed the sum of N93billion out of the N98billion appropriated through SURE-P in 2014 fiscal year.
Major road priority projects awarded in 2014 include rehabilitation of Lagos-Shagamu-Ibadan dual carriageway section I & II; rehabilitation of Enugu-Port Harcourt dual carriageway section I $ II; dualisation of Abuja-Abaji-Lokoja sections I, III & IV; dualisation of Kano-Maiduguri sections I-V; dualisation of Suleja-Minna phase I in Niger state; rehabilitation of Apapa-Oshodi expressway in Lagos, phase II; rehabilitation of Enugu-Port Harcourt dual carriageway sections III & IV; dualisation of Suleja-Minna phase II in Niger state; dualisation of Sapele-Ewu road section I & II and construction of Ikom bridge, Cross River state.
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