Inalegwu Shaibu
3 July 2008
Lagos — FORMER President Olusegun Obasanjo was yesterday accused of unilaterally awarding 13 road projects without appropriation while in office.
A former Director of Federal Highways, Mr. Charles Unuigbe in his testimony yesterday before the Senate ad-hoc panel on the affairs of the transportation sector said that the Federal Government spent N415billion on road constructions and rehabilitation in the country since 1999. The figure was against the widely claimed N968 billion said to have been spent within the same period.
Earlier the Accountant-General of the Federation, Ibrahim Dankwabo had claimed that over N800 billion had been spent on road construction and rehabilitation since 1999.
Mr. Unuigbe in his testimony yesterday said that the 13 road projects awarded by the former President without appropriation were often stimulated by political considerations.
He said three of the projects, such as the East-West Road, the Kano-Maiduguri road and the Abuja-Lokoja road were to be funded by loans from the Niger Delta Development Commission and the National Stabilisation Fund.
He said Obasanjo approved the withdrawal of N16 billion from the NNDC for the funding of the East-West road, while ordering the release of N20 billion from the stabilization fund for the execution of the Kano-Maiduguri and Abuja-Lokoja roads respectively.
He further said that the funds were expected to be loans to the then Ministry of Works for the execution of the projects.
He said although the releases were far too small to construct the roads, the presidential directive prevailed and the projects were commenced in spite of the odds.
Unuigbe however said that the loans were immediately returned to the funds as soon as the funds were released from appropriation.According to him, the total road contract commitments by the Federal Government since 1999 totalled N940.79 billion.
He further argued that there were concrete evidences of road construction in all the six geopolitical zones of the federation.The committee however noted that some of the roads he mentioned had failed because they were badly constructed.Unuigbe could also not explain the actual rates of road construction in the country, as he argued that the variables were too many to determine a standard rate.
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