The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, Thursday identified lack of fund as the bane of poor road network in the country.
He also disclosed that there are over 500 roads across the country requiring rehabilitation but for poor budgetary funding. Fashola stated this during the 2020 budget defence before the joint interactive session of both House of Representatives and Senate in Abuja.
However, the Minister said that the Federal government only captured those critical roads with economic value for attention in the 2020 budget.
Further, Fashola underscored the importance of private partnership on road construction to make significant progress in the sector.
Also, he added that the Federal government required external sources such as Sukuk and other investments, where money would be saved and used whenever needed for critical roads construction in the country.
The Minister even disclosed that only yesterday, his office received over forty nine road requests and wondered where the funding would be coming from, reiterating that only the existing roads would be attended in the 2020 budget as he ruled out the possibility of new roads under this circumstance of financial straits.
In corroboration, the chairman Senate Committee on Works, Senator Adamu Aliero, enjoined members of the committee to restrict questions only on national roads other than their immediate zones or constituencies, lamenting that poor budgetary funding may not allow to capture such new roads.
Aliero also affirmed that even the entire ten trillion naira appropriated as National budget for this year, cannot be enough to even fix the over five hundred existing roads in the country.