The Minister of Power Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, on Saturday night, confirmed that his ministry has received N124.8bn for the construction of federal highway projects across the country.
In a report on the one year in office of the minister, the ministry stated that the fund was released in two parts.
It said, “In June 2016, the ministry received its first release of N79bn under the 2016 Appropriation Act, out of which N70.4bn was utilised for highway projects.
“Payments were made to contractors to return to site after years of inactivity which resulted in them recalling their workers.
“As of November 11, 2016, the ministry has disbursed N124.8bn from the 2016 Appropriation Act for highway projects. Under the first release, N70.42bn was disbursed on 203 highway projects.
“The disbursement in June 2016 enabled contractors to return to site and a total of 8,759 jobs were created nationwide.”
The report further stated that the total debt owed contractors for executed projects as at November 2015 was N236.3bn
It said the cost to complete ongoing projects as at same period stood at N1.58tn, while the 2015 budget provision for highway projects was N20.65bn.
According to the ministry, most contractors during the 2015 work period have either drastically slowed down works on the sites or have abandoned sites due to non-payment of outstanding claims.
The report also stated that the Federal Government received $330m funding for federal roads development projects from the World Bank and $3m grant from Policy and Human Resources Development.
It also stated that the Federal Government’s 10 per cent Counterpart Fund for World Bank, is $32m; African Development Bank, $161.57m; and FGN Counterpart Fund for AfDB, $17.83m.
