Committee calls on govt to establish roads authority

THE Road Sector Reform Committee has urged the Federal Government to abide by international best practices in road development by immediately establishing a Federal Roads Authority and a National Road Fund to overcome infrastructural development challenges in the nation's road sector.Presenting its report to the Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen, an architect, last week tagged 'Transforming the Road Sector,' the Committee's Chairman, Dr. Bernard Obika stated that the Federal Road Authority, as recommended, will be private sector driven to eliminate the usual civil service bureaucracy and in that wise allow the Ministry of Works focus on Guidelines, supervisory and policy implementation aspects.He also said that the National Road Fund when operational will warehouse adequate funds to sustain an all year round and continuous maintenance of the Federal, State and Local Government roads.The committee stated that in order for Nigeria to move towards a sustainable economy commensurate with vision 2020, it needs to increase the total road network from current 193,000 to over 300,000km by 2020. It further stated that the paved network will need to increase from current 60,000km to over 200,000 by the year 2020 with paving of an average 14,000km of roads every year requiring an estimate of N600billion per year.While receiving the report, the Minister noted that it signified a great milestone in roads infrastructural development and promised that the Federal Government will use the report to midwife the reforms in the road sector as part of the transformation agenda of the present administration.He promised that the Federal Government will stop at nothing to establishing a Federal Road Authority and a National Road Fund should these be the exclusive requirements to transforming the Nigerian road sector to meet with global standards in road development.
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