From: Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The House of Representatives, on Wednesday, resolved to probe ongoing and abandoned critical Federal Government projects in the road, power, education and transportation sectors of the economy. The House is also to investigate projects in the education, agricultural, security, science and technology and environment sectors.
The House has, therefore, mandated its committees on Finance and National Planning and Economic Development, to undertake the exercise.
The committees are to ascertain the number and location of ongoing or abandoned Federal Government capital projects across the six geo-political zones in the country.
The committees are also expected to ascertain the total sum committed to the projects, amount so far paid and the outstanding payment.
They are to report back to the House within eight weeks for further legislative action.
This followed a motion moved at yesterday’s plenary by Hon. Babangida Ibrahim on “Need to Determine the Status of ongoing/Abandoned Federal Government Projects.”
In his motion, Ibrahim observed that there is infrastructure deficit in the country characterized by dilapidated road network, epileptic power supply, moribund railway system, dilapidated structures in the education, health sectors among others.
He noted that in the last 17 years, trillions of naira has been committed to the provision of critical infrastructure in agriculture, transportation, education, health, environment, security, science and technology, roads and power supply across Nigeria.
The lawmaker stated that regretably, the implementation of capital budgets in the country since 2000 has never reached 50 per cent, thereby resulting in proliferation of uncompleted projects across the country.
According to him, “as at May 2011, there were over 11,886 ongoing projects that required over N10 trillion and more than 10 years to complete even if an average sum of ₦1 trillion is provided annually to fund the projects. ”
Ibrahim added “that of the total commitment of ₦7.8trillion for the 11,886 ongoing projects, only ₦2.7 trillion was paid to contractors, implying an outstanding commitment of ₦5.1 trillion as at May 2011.”