By Tordue Salem
ABUJA—FINANCE Minister, Segun Aganga, yesterday blamed the deplorable state of Nigerian roads on the lack of capacity of Work Ministry departments to implement successive budgets.

The minister spoke through the Director General of Budget, Dr. Bright Okogwu at the House Committee on Works’ hearing on roads in the South East and South South parts of the country.

Irked by the declaration, the Committee led by Rep. Chukwuka Onyeama, PDP, Ogbaru_Anambra, ordered the contractors handling the roads to expedite action to make the roads convenient for the Christmas period.

The Committee gave the order during a meeting with the minister of works, Senator Sanusi Dagash, the contractors and the committee that summoned all the stakeholders with a view to finding solution to the roads problems in the country.

The committee in a report of its sub committee on South South and South East roads red by the Sub committee chairman, Rep. Patty Tete, expressed concern over the way some contractors were handling the roads.

Investigation conducted revealed that Calabar- Ugep- Ogoja- Kasina-Ala road awarded for N4.6 billion was just about 40 per cent completed while section 11 of the same project cost N5.2 billion was just 32 per cent completed.

Tete also told the gathering that the contractors, especially those handing the South South axis were not living up to the expectations of the government and Nigerians.

Following this revelation from the report, chairman of the committee, Hon Chukuwuma Onyeama, told the minister and contractors that the meeting was necessitated on how to improve the nations roads.

All explanations and complaints made by the contractors fell on deaf ears as committee members insisted that something has to be done to arrest the ugly situation which is already creating embarrassment to the government.

Meanwhile, the House  yesterday summoned Aganga  over conflicting figures emanating from his office as regards the release made to the ministry for the implementation of 2010 capital projects.

Onyema said the non_release of funds for construction of newly approved roads and renovation of the existing ones have brought untold hardship to the masses even as he decried the rate of road accidents owing to the parlous state of the roads across the nation.

He said: “Information we got from both ministries of Finance and Works are conflicting and there is need to clarify the actual amount of funds released and accessed so far. When we went round the country on oversight of projects, we discovered that project implementation could be put at just 25percent.

“The common complaints we have from various contractors has been that of non_release of funds yet the Finance Ministry claims it has released money different from the figures provided by the Works when confronted. We want to know actually what is happening.”

Constituency projects

He also complained that there were certain projects that had passed through due process but were yet to be awarded. Onyema noted that most of the constituency projects facilitated by lawmakers were yet to be awarded making them to be on edge more so when the year was running to an end.

Responding, Director General of the Budget Office, Bright Okogu, told the lawmakers that his office had cleared N101billion to the ministry in the last three quarters leaving only the last quarter.

He re_affirmed Aganga’s disclosure that the government has so far released N750billion for capital budget even as he disclosed that the figure would rise significantly by the time releases made in the last quarters are made public by the end of the month.

Okogu,  however, assured the members that the extension of capital implementation to the end of March, 2011 would improve the percentage of implementation.

While noting the figures released by the Budget Office tallied with the one presented by the Finance Ministry, the committee requested Okogu to forward to it document stating details of the release to it so that such could be used to confront the Finance Minister next week.

Commenting on the challenges facing budget implementation in the country, Okogu said research carried out by his office discovered that lateness in the passage of the appropriation laws by the National Assembly.