Before
the Senate Committee on the Federal
Emergency Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA), the minister responsible
for-federal-roads, Babatunde Fashola
(SAN) announced that tolls would now be re-constructed at the 38 locations
from which they were demolished in 2004. This decision by the federal
government to bring back toll plazas is a clear admission that the funding of
roads cannot be from yearly budgetary allocations and that to continue with the
current model is a disservice to Nigeria. Ordinarily, this new move would have
been considered a good step but a look into history reveals it as an indictment
of the nation’s leadership for policy somersaults arising in part from
disregard for the rigorous input of experts.
In
2003, when the then Minister of Works, Senator
Adeseye Ogunlewe, announced that tolls would be removed from Federal
highways “if the fuel tax was introduced,” there was an avalanche of counsel
against the idea. Nevertheless, the government of the day went ahead and
subsequently met a brick-wall on the fuel tax plan as the National Assembly
affirmed that there must be an enabling law for the proposed five percent
surcharge on the pump price of fuel. As fuel tax was part of the matrix of
funds for the National Road Fund, the Federal Government resuscitated the idea
and a Draft Bill was sent to the National Assembly in 2009. Not much progress
has been made ever since.
In the
recent briefing to the Senate Committee, current minister, Babatunde Fashola
(SAN) gave details: The final designs for the toll plazas had been received but
tolling would commence only after the rehabilitation of the roads to be tolled.
Toll collection will be contracted out to private operators. Latest available
technology would be deployed; with Electronic Reading System, e-payment and
direct transfers by motorists using their mobile phones.
It is,
however, understandable that the Senator Magnus Abe-led Committee raised issues
concerning FERMA. It was an opportunity for the Minister to solicit the
Senate’s support for a quick passing of the Bill in the Senate for the
establishment of the National Road Fund and the Federal Roads Authority. That
effort is being led by Senator Kabiru
Gaya, Chairman of Committee on Works with oversight functions over federal
roads. Certainly, the Minister and the senators need to pay greater attention
to the bill, which has gone through a second reading. The minister also needs
to allay misgivings about his position on this issue. His predecessor in
office, Architect Mike Onolohmemen,
had announced in 2013 that the road agency would be established as the
permanent solution to the challenge of funding roads and to eliminate the
duplication of functions by FERMA and the Federal Highways Division.
In the
past, revenue collected from toll plazas did not go directly into road
maintenance and administration, because such funds were deposited in the
Consolidated Revenue Account. Payments for road programmes, therefore, had to
come from budgetary allocations. This time around, the Minister assured that
monies collected from toll plazas would be used for maintenance. How would this
be achieved without a Road Fund and given the exigencies of the Treasury Single
Account?
On the
problems of FERMA, the Minister reported that in the current fiscal year, the
agency has a budget of N25B but only N800M has been released by the Ministry of
Finance. Yet, the Minister promised that the Highways Division and FERMA “will
try and repair the roads before people start travelling in December.” It is
widely known that to every challenge in Nigeria’s infrastructure development,
all the necessary solutions had been proffered and are well-documented. Many
Nigerian experts and consultants who have worked for years have however
suffered frustration in the hands of successive leadership without the will to
implement. So have the officials from international development agencies who
worked with the best interest of Nigeria at heart. Many specialists have taken
similar recommendations or solutions to other nations, which promptly
implemented them to their benefit while Nigeria has been a pitiable model of
the absence of the will to do the right thing. This is the malaise road reforms
have suffered since 1972.
Now,
there is a need for synergy in government policy and programmes for roads. The
duplication of efforts exists also in the legislature. Why are there many
committees on roads, as in other areas? It is time for the executive to drive
the actualization of the effort to establish a Road Fund and the Federal Roads
Authority. To re-introduce tolls without the National Road Fund and the Federal
Roads Authority is to put the cart before the horse. If the vacillation on this
long-standing issue continues, it will result in total collapse of Nigeria’s
road network. (Guardian)
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