The senate has flayed Babatunde Fashola, minister of
works, housing and power, for saying that the national
assembly “imported projects” into the 2017 budget.

It lampooned the minister for criticising the
legislature’s reduction of budgetary allocation to the
Lagos-Ibadan expressway project, accusing Fashola
of spreading “half-truths” because he wants his
ministry to have “many construction projects it can
award contracts for”.

In an interview last weekend, Fashola
said there were aspects of the 2017 appropriation act
that violate the constitution, suggesting that the
judiciary might have to explain how far lawmakers
could go in altering the budget.

But in a statement issued by Aliyu Abdullahi Sabi, its
spokesman, the senate asked the minister “to stop
spreading wrong information and half-truth about the
2017 budget as the legislators worked to ensure equity
across the country on all new and outstanding
projects”.

The senate said in a blatant disregard for existing
agreements, constituted authorities and extant
laws, Fashola on assumption of office got the
government through the ministry to start voting money
for the implementation of the project.

“Even as at last year the 2016 appropriation act voted
N40 billion for the project on the insistence of the
ministry and only N26 billion was released. If we had
known, the rest N14 billion could have been allocated
to other critical roads across the country,” it explained.

“In the spirit of consensus building and effective
stakeholder engagement, the leadership of the senate
met with key relevant stakeholders, including the
ministries of works and finance. It was agreed that we
should give the private finance Initiative a chance to
complement government’s resources in the delivery of
critical infrastructure assets across the
country. Hence, in this year’s budget, we
have engaged with the government and private sector
groups who have assured that they will resume
funding of the project. So, we only provided the fund in
the budget that would ensure work does not stop
before the funds from the private sector start coming
“Hence, in this year’s budget, we have engaged with
the government and private sector groups who have
assured that they will resume funding of the project.

So, we only provided the fund in the budget that would
ensure work does not stop before the funds from
the private sector start coming in.What we reduced
from Lagos-Ibadan expressway in the 2017 budget
estimate was spread on Oyo-Ogbomoso road in
the south-west, Enugu-Onitsha road in the south-
east, and two other critical roads in the north-east and
north-west; and this was done to achieve equity. The
minister should realise he is minister for the entire
country and not just that of Lagos state.

“It is our view that the federal government cannot fund
the reconstruction and maintenance of all the
34,000 kilometres of roads under its care. We are
looking for private funds for some of these roads,
particularly those with high potentials of attracting
private investors. These include the Enugu-Onitsha
road, Kano-Abuja road and Abuja-Lokoja road. It has
been our hope that the Lagos -Ibadan road would be a
model for private sector funding of infrastructure in the
country.”

The upper legislative chamber said Fashola knew that
federal government could not fully fund this road for
completion by 2019 as he is promising Nigerians.
“The minister’s statement is in bad taste and we
believe he has been quoted out of context as an
experienced public servant with over 15 years of high-
level responsibility will not be uttering such
statements. He should desist from spreading half-
truths. When he said the national assembly imported
projects into the 2017 budget, he did not mention that
these include the 26 projects which the federal
government approved in the 2016 budget, awarded
contract for them in January 2016, but totally omitted
them in the 2017 budget. One of them is the Abuja-
Kaduna road. These ones would have become
abandoned projects. We reduced funds across board
to make provision for these omitted projects that are of
critical importance to the socio-economic
development of the country in line with equity and fair
play.

“Mr Fashola obviously wants the federal ministry of
works to have many construction projects it can
award contracts for and that is why he would always
oppose any attempt to allow the private
sector financing initiatives through public-private
partnerships or other levels of government to fund
construction of roads under the control of the federal
government. That was why he waited until he was
arm-twisted on the Lagos airport road before he
allowed the Lagos state government take up the
reconstruction, using private funds. Same thing
happened to the proposal for the Apapa Wharf
road, which was frustrated for over a year before
the stakeholders reined in the ministry to grudgingly
approve that Dangote and Flour Mills should take over
the project.”

TheCable