Minister confirms receipt of N124.8B for highway projects

The Minister of Power Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has confirmed the receipt of N124.8billion for the construction of federal highway projects across the country.

Fashola confirmed that his ministry received the sum on Saturday night, November 12, 2016.

In a report by Punch Newspaper, the minister reportedly stated that the fund was released to the ministry in two parts.

“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,” Fashola made known as he gave report of his one year in office.

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Meanwhile, the minister disclosed 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.

Total debt owed contractors for executed projects as at November 2015 was N236.3billion, while the cost to complete ongoing projects as at same period stood at N1.58trillion, though the 2015 budget made a provision of N20.65billion for highway projects.