Sanni Onogu, Abuja
The Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) on Tuesday, said it has proposed N55.5billion for maintenance of roads across the country.
The Managing Director of FERMA, Nurudeen Rafindadi disclosed this when he appeared before the Senate Committee on FERMA chaired by Senator Gershon Bassey to defend the 2021 budget estimates of the agency.
Speaking about the 2021 budget of FERMA, Rafindadi said that N38.2 billion was proposed for capital expenditure while N17.3 billion is earmarked for recurrent expenditure and N14.9 billion as overhead, and N2.3 billion as personnel cost.
When asked to present details of ongoing projects being executed by FERMA on a state by state basis by the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Gershon Bassey, Rafindadi said he would make the projects available to the Committee at a later date.
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According to him, “we will bring the breakdown of projects being executed state by state as soon as possible and the amount earmarked for the projects across the country.”
When asked to project the roads that will be done in 2021, the FERMA MD said, “We cannot project right now, we have N21 billion available to tackle emergency road projects which is yet to be deployed yet.
“We prioritize emergency jobs base on Ministerial prioritization for roads, we prioritize critical economic routes, the road to refineries and depots, the road through Agriculture areas, etc.”
He added that part of the priority of FERMA are roads funded through multilateral loans and internal roads in federal institutions.
