• Urge FG to hand over federal roads to states
From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
Governors have launched a fresh appeal to the Federal Government, to consider “poor states” for another round of budget support.
The new bailout, they said, would enable the states offset staff salary arrears and other allowances.
Aside Lagos and Rivers states, most of the governors persuaded the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adoesun, to find ways of sustaining the budget support facility to poor states, especially when the amount that accrues into the federation account was less than N600 billion.
This follows confirmation that some states have defaulted in some of the criteria set out for accessing the funds, a development that has stalled it for a few months.
Ebonyi State Governor, Dave Umahi, who briefed State House Correspondents after yesterday’s National Economic Council (NEC) meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, said for the month of September 2017, a total of N630 billion was available for states to share, hence, non of the states would qualify for the special intervention or bail out.
He said: “We came to understanding that any month the total sharable revenue in the federation account is less than N600 billion, the the Minister of Finance will give each state budget support.
“We concluded that in the last 12 months and that continued for the second year. States have done very well; some states have been able to pay their accumulated salary debts and also increased their commitment to infrastructure and generation of revenue.
“However, from July, that was not paid, and in the month of August, I think about seven states were paid because, according to the minister, other states did not comply with the set down rules; the most outstanding of that was the non remittance of Value Added Tax (VAT) from the states.
“So, those seven states have been paid, but more states have complied, and we requested that those states that have complied should be paid.
“The good news is that in the month of September, the sharable amount is N630 billion, so there would be no budget support for the states.”
The governor gave a breakdown of funds in the excess crude account on behalf of the Finance Ministry He said stabilisation account balance as at September 26, 2017, stood at N4.354 billion, while development of natural resources account balance as at September 26 stood at N84.693 billion. Excess crude account balance as at September 22 stood at $2.3 billion.
Meanwhile, the dilapidation of roads across the country and the stress Nigerians plying the roads go through have forced governors of the 36 states of the federation to call on President Muhammadu Buhari to handover some of the federal roads to the affected states for them to fix.
The governors said with public-private partnership, the roads would be fixed faster and the funds invested can be recouped through tolls.
Governor Umahi said Council members expressed concern over issues of roads construction, damage and maintenance and suggested that the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing come up with strategies to regulate the weight of heavy duty vehicles plying the roads, as this may be responsible for road damage and collapse.
The Ebonyi governor said it had become clear that the federal government lacked the required funds to fix roads.
Governor Abdulfatai Ahmed of Kwara State, on his part, said despite being faced with the challenge of paying salaries, states could fix roads through a Public-Private Partnership arrangement.
Umahi said the new arrangement, if approved, would save the federal government the stress of maintaining the roads cutting across states, for which most have consistently failed despite repeated repairs.
He said council members agreed that the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing must also come up with strategies to lessen the burden on the highways.
“Council was concerned over the deplorable state of our roads. Even after fixing the roads, they would collapse within six months. We identified that over loading is one of the major causes.
“In road design, most of the time you don’t use an axial load of more than 35 tonnes, but we have noticed that a lot of our trucks carrying fuel do 45, 60, 70 tonnes, and that’s a major concern to state governors.”
“We said the Minister for Works and Housing should come up with a strategy to regulate the weight of heavy trucks plying the roads which have been fingered as the root causes of road collapse.
“Lastly, the state governors are very much concerned about these failures, its been agitating our minds and we are thinking about strategies and we are soliciting that federal government give out some of the federal roads to states so that states can fix the roads through investors and toll the roads.
“We believe strongly that it will be more effective because, with the number of federal roads being handled by federal government, there is no amount of budget that can fix them,” Umahi stressed.