The Federal Roads Maintenance Agency disclosed recently that it repaired and maintained over 300 federal roads across the country in 2019.
FERMA’s Managing Director, Nuruddeen Rafindadi, disclosed this in Abuja headquarters of the agency while making a presentation to the House of Representatives Committee on FERMA.
Members of the committee, led by their Chairman, Femi Bamisile, visited the agency recently as part of their oversight functions.
Rafindadi told his guests that the agency intervened on over 300 roads in virtually all states of the federation, but was quick to state that funding posed a challenge during the period.
“We had interventions in every state of the federation including the Federal Capital Territory,” he said.
The FERMA boss added, “The interventions were done based on emergencies and so some states recorded a large number of interventions than others depending on the emergencies there.”
Reacting to some of the issues in the presentation made by Rafindadi, the committee demanded that the agency should be more specific about the maintenance exercise it has carried out on roads.
It stated that FERMA should mention the names of communities where the road repairs were done and state the particular locations, rather than using numbers to identify the areas.
The committee’s chairman also stated that members of his team should be part of the budgeting process of the agency as they represented people who use the roads fixed by FERMA.
Bamisile further emphasised that the 2020 budget was passed early in order to enhance its implementation, but decried the non-availability of funds and long procurement processes which agencies undergo before they could implement their budgets.
“If this is allowed to continue, then it means that the 2020 budget that was passed early enough might be seen as an effort in futility,” he stated.
