>
The Federal Government has released the list of the 69 ongoing road and bridge projects in the South East, as a further reply to the South East Governors Forum who last weeek accused the Federal Government of shortchanging states in the region in the implementation of capital projects in the 2017 budget.
The Director General of the forum, Prof. Simon Otuanya, while presenting a monitoring report on performance of the 2017 federal capital budget in the South East, said South East governors were interested in the 2017 approved budget because it was linked with the 2017-2020 Economic Recovery and Growth Plan of the present administration.
Otunaya said: “The capital projects implementation in 2017 did not fare well at all in South East states.
“The roads have remained impassable and so the Federal Government should please do better in 2018 and we hope that the Federal Government will make the improvement.”
Responding last week, Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in a statement issued by his Special Assistant, Segun Adeyemi, said the South East region has never enjoyed infrastructural inclusion in the national budget, like it has in the current administration.
“In conclusion, the South-east has never had it so good in the area of infrastructure. Had the previous administrations done even half of what we are doing now in that region, no one will be complaining today. It is alright to ask for more, but it is unfair to say nothing has been done,” the statement said.
He said some of the project include the rehabilitation of the existing Niger Bridge as well as the construction of the 2nd Niger Bridge and promised to publish the full list of the roads and bridges, as well as give a state-by-state breakdown of the total figure.
While publishing a list of the 69 projects on Monday, Lai Mohammed said the contracts for many of the roads were awarded before the advent of the Buhari administration, but were either poorly funded or not funded at all, causing a delay in their completion.
The Minister said the 69 roads and bridges, which are spread across the five states in the South-east, are now in different stages of completion, thanks to the funding sourced by the present asministration from budgetary allocations, the Sukuk Bond and the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund.
He said the government is also looking into the possibility of using a part of the recovered looted funds to fund the development of infrastructure across the country.
See the list below: