APC Leadership Conversation Series: Fashola Gives Account, Other Ministers to Follow
- The APC has commenced a self-assessment of the Muhammadu Buhari administration in the last seven years
- The party held a progressive leadership conversation in Kano state which featured the minister of works and housing, Babatunde Fashola
- The series which continues in other states will feature the minister of transport, Rotimi Amaechi, and Zainab Ahmed, finance minister
Kano - The minister of works and housing, Babatunde Fashola has given President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration a pass mark on road construction, saying that the government had devoted reasonable funding to road construction.
Fashola made the comment at a conversation series convened by Barrister Ismaeel Ahmed, an All Progressives Congress (APC) youth leader and senior special assistant to the president on special interventions.
Source: Twitter
He stressed that a major radar with which he assesses the successes recorded in road infrastructure was how it had made the life of farmers and other Nigerians and businesses easier.
He said that farmers as well as other Nigerians engaging in various businesses could now move their products or render their services with more ease.
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Exemplifying with Kano state where he toured federal road projects on the sideline of the conversation series, the minister hailed the level of progress that had been recorded by the government to his ministry.
Fashola who inspected the Kano/Katsina Phase One road project, which will link Nigeria to the Niger Republic, said that there was great progress on the infrastructure.
His words:
“There is progress but with accompanying challenges, challenges in dualising what used to be a single carriageway and making the road more conducive for easy flow of traffic.
“This means we have to move out built-up facilities, markets, buildings, and others; we have to relocate both electricity poles and others.
“We are hopeful that the state governors will respond, and cooperate so that we can provide the infrastructure that will connect states.”
The minister commended President Muhammadu Buhari for making available resources to continue with infrastructural development throughout the federation.
According to him, if all infrastructural facilities are in place, they will ease the process of doing business and increase productivity.
Giving a run-down of progress made by the ministry, he however identified inadequate funding as the major bane to the development of roads and other critical infrastructure.
According to the minister, road construction in Nigeria is a capital-intensive project which time and energy must be put into.
Other challenges the minister also identified are; right of way, compensation, weather, geological factor, insecurity, and occupational hazard, all of which he said cause delays during road construction.
On the scorecard, he said that the government had completed certain roads including Kebbi-Sokoto, Kontagora-Jega Koko road, Kano-Jigawa-Azare, and Potiskum roads.
Others are Vandekya in Venue to Obudu in Calabar, Cross River state.
Also, in bridges construction, the minister mentioned the Nfon bridge in Cross River state which is a major international link to Cameroon.
Others are the Calabar port bridge which was now a gateway to the northern part of the country through Katsina-Ala ìn Benue state.
The minister further said that the Bonny-Bodo highway construction which has four major bridges and eight minor ones were already in an advanced stage of completion.
Buhari stresses need for FG, Nigerian engineers partnership
Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari has charged Nigerian engineers to partner with the federal government for the rapid infrastructural development of the country.
The president said this on Saturday, January 22 during the investiture ceremony of the 33rd national president and chairman-in-council of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Engineer Tasiu Sa’ad Gidari-Wudil, at the International Conference Centre, Abuja.
The president, who was the distinguished guest of honour and represented by the minister of science and technology, Ogbonnaya Onu, said for Nigeria to make progress as a nation, the government and Nigerian engineers must partner together.
ICRC moves to re-energize six dry ports concessions in Nigeria
In a related development, the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) has commenced a bid to get the six Inland Container Depots (ICDs) located in each of the geo-political zones of Nigeria to become operational.
The ICRC on Wednesday, January 19 held a meeting with the Nigerian Shippers’ Council who are the owners of the project and the concessionaires.
The meeting, which was at the instance of the ICRC, sought to find solutions to the factors hindering the completion of the dry ports whose contracts were signed since 2006.
Source: Legit.ng
