Leadership (Abuja)
Ibrahim Sidi Muh'd
16 November 2009
Gusau — The Federal Government has been urged to maintain the estimated 194,000 kilometre road network nationwide, and revives its responsibility on the exercise with an initial 17%, while states and local governments should bear 16 and 67% respectively.
The call was made by the Zamfara State Commissioner for Works and Transport, Alhaji Ibrahim Ajiya Shinkafi, who was represented by the Managing Director Road Maintenance Agency (ZAROMA), Engineer Tukur Rafi Boko, at a one-day workshop organised by the National Orientation Agency (NOA) Zamfara State on maintenance culture, lamenting that huge amount of money had been sunk into the development of roads after which they were plagued by negligence and poor maintenance.
Shinkafi, who also assessed the loss due to bad roads into which N80billion had gone unprofitably for faulty designs and inadequate drainage system, further disclosed that another sum of N53.8 billion was lost as a result of potholes that operating vehicles were hitting daily on bad roads.
"The level of deterioration on our roads and the loss of millions of lives as a result of their bad shapes, had since gone beyond maintenance," he added.
"This is as a result of not carrying out the required maintenance as expected, immediately after completion of new road or infrastructure in general.
"Our roads have gone so bad to the level of comparing them with vehicles having knocked engines, all because of neglect of maintenance for years".
The commissioner maintained that there is a Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) and the Zamfara State Road Maintenance Agency (ZAROMA), which were saddled with the responsibility to maintain both federal and state roads.
He said, that Nigeria has unlike other African countries like Ghana, which have devised additional and permanent sources of funding for roads maintenance, including proportion of government levy on petrol, diesel and kerosene.
Earlier, the director of NOA Zamfara chapter, Christiana Amina Shehu Adama, on behalf of the director general, said the Federal Government had concluded arrangements to make the potholes free for safer movement accross the country.
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