The Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) says it has commenced plans to fill up potholes and intervene in the repair of 50 failed federal roads across the country.
In response to an inquiry by our correspondent on Monday, the Director of Information and Communication, Maryam Sanusi, said the agency had mapped out plans to fix the roads and make them accessible all year round.
She said, “Our plan is to work in about 50 locations or more, all over the country. We can open up and make all the routes free of potholes and critical failures thereby making it motorable all year round.
“The major work to be done is to fix all the critical failures along the 36,000km which are mainly washouts, and by linear measurements, they are not so much in quantity. Eventually, we’ll give you the result in kilometres, because FERMA has a set target of maintaining 5,000km every year.”
An earlier PUNCH report had revealed that President Bola Tinubu’s administration inherited 38 uncompleted road projects worth N979bn from the former President Muhammadu Buhari’s government.
The projects were identified through an analysis of the 2023 budget and cross-checked with the national monitoring and evaluation platform, EYEMARK, which was launched by Buhari in December last year.
One of the critical projects was the expansion of the Abuja-Keffi dual carriageway and the dualization of the Keffi-Akwanga-Lafia-Makurdi road in Nasarawa State.
Other key projects that had yet to be completed included the Benue State Phase 1, Lafia bypass, and 9th mile (Enugu)-Otukpo-Makurdi Road in Enugu and Benue States Phase II which reportedly costs about N32.5bn.
Also on the list was the rehabilitation of the Ikorodu-Shagamu Road including the access road to Mosimi in Lagos State at the cost of N100m, and the full scope development of Federal Capital Territory Highway 105 (Kuje Road) from the airport expressway to the outer Southern Expressway with Spur at Kyami District valued at N54.95bn among others.
The Punch
