FERMA Conveys Stakeholders Forum to Seek Other Sources of Funding

In a bid to fulfilling its mandate and to make travelling across the country easier for the road users, the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) conveyed Stakeholders Forum recently at the International Conference Centre, Abuja to brainstorm and proffer solutions to challenges being encountered by the Agency in the effective discharge of its mandate.
The Managing Director, FERMA, Engr. Nuruddeen. A. Rafindadi, FNSE, in his welcome address at the FREMA Stakeholders forum said, the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) was established 30th November 2002 by the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (Establishment, etc.) Act 2002, an Act of the National Assembly. The Agency was established for proper monitoring and maintenance of all Federal roads as stated in clause 4 of this enabling Act. It commenced operation in April 2003 saying the establishment was the first official attempt to institutionalize some reform in national road management.
He added that FERMA is charged with the responsibility to monitor and maintain the 30,000 km Federal roads out of about 200,000km in lane kilometres in the National road network with about 35,000km gazetted as Federal roads while State governments is responsible for another 32,000 km, with the remaining 134,000km in the purview of Local Governments.
Rafindadi disclosed that FERMA maintains fully staffed offices in every State of the Federation, each led by a Federal Roads Maintenance Engineer, this, he said was to enable FERMA deliver on its mandate of monitoring and maintaining Federal Roads nationwide. He however said that funding; amongst other considerations are determinants in the effective productivity of the Agency in delivering on its mandate. He added that his hope was that a number of feasible, but researchable solutions to the teething challenges of the Agency will be proffered during the stakeholders’ forum.
In his Keynote address, the Chairman, Governing Board of FERMA, Mr. Tunde Lemo, said Over 80% of travels in Nigeria are carried out on roads; with about 90% of that being largely Federal interstate roads. Thus, Federal roads constitute the spine of the Nigerian road network. To effectively evaluate the productive management of the Nigerian road therefore, one needs only to evaluate the effective management of the Federal roads. With only about 10,0000km of Federal roads in ‘good’ state and about 13,300km and 11,600km in ‘fair’ and ‘bad’ states, respectively; it isn’t difficult to understand why road density in Nigeria is a paltry 0.21km/sq.km.2.
Lemo said funding for Nigerian roads is less than 1.0% GDP (against a 3.0% GDP WB minimum spending threshold). He added that at the moment, funding for Nigerian roads has largely been from fiscal allocation through Appropriation Acts, with an increasingly shrinking national budget, and fierce competition for such fund between different sectors and subsector of national economy. It is imperative that the development and management of road sector explore alternative funding sources. He called for an emergency action in the road sector by the government.
Corroborating the position of the Agency, the Chairman, Senate Committee on FERMA, Senator Gershom Bassey, and his counterpart at the House of Representative, Femi Bamisile, also frown at the poor funding of FERMA. Gershom said the Senate expressed serious concern that several thousands of lives had been lost to road accidents due to deplorable state of roads which also gives the kidnapper and armed robbers opportunity to operate freely on Nigerian highways. He disclosed that he moved a motion on the floor of the Senate on the deplorable state of Federal highways that are in need of urgent attention, and asking the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency on Federal Roads across the nation. He stated that the Senate Committee on FERMA, Petroleum Downstream and National Planning have been mandated to investigate the non- remittance of the five percent (5%) user charge on pump price of petrol and international vehicle transit charge accruing to FERMA. These, he said will serve as alternative source of income that will help FERMA to discharge its duties more effectively and efficiently, thereby bringing relief to road users.