Second Niger Bridge to gulp N117 billion - FG
(Nigeria) The Minister of Works, Mr Mike Onolememen, said on
Tuesday in Abuja that N117 billion will be spent to construct the second Niger
Bridge.
Onolememen made this known while defending the ministry's
budget before the Sen. Abdul Ningi (PDP-Bauchi) led Senate Ad Hoc Committee on
Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P).
The minister said that N30 billion of the amount would be
sourced from the SURE-P while the balance would come from the private sector
partners.
"What government set up to do from the beginning was
that the N30 billion counterpart fund for the second Niger Bridge was going to
be paid through the SURE-P. It was postulated that every year, the sum of N10
billion would be provided in the SURE-P for the second Niger Bridge and because
it did not take off in 2012, we downgraded the allocation until the project
takes off."
According to him, there is massive mobilisation going on now
at the location and the ground breaking ceremony will be done before the middle
of March.
"Before mid-March, the ground breaking for the major
work will be done, and from then on full construction will commence. I am sure
that the project will be able to access all its funds at a time, N7 billion had
earlier been used for the preparatory work on the bridge.
"Throughout last year what we were doing was the early
work; phase one for the second Niger bridge. We went to the site, we did a lot
of preparatory studies, morhpological studies and geotanical studies which led
to the final design of the bridge and preparation of the bill for engineering
measurement and evaluation."
He said that approval had been given for the early work on
phase two which would cost about N15 billion.
"The money for this year, N10 billion that has been
appropriated will appropriately be devoted to that. It is part of the major
work of the bridge, in other words, that N15 billion is part of the total sum
for the completion of that bridge.
The minister, however, said that the completion of the
project would depend on the availability of funds.
The Director General of the Budget Office, Dr Bright Okogu,
said what the ministry needed to do to access the N30 billion SURE-P funds was
to go through the SURE-P Secretariat Committee.
"All they have to do is to go through the SURE-P
secretariat committee, indicate evidence of work done, ask the chairman and his
team to send people to go and witness and certify.
"Then, they will make a claim based on that particular
observation. This is all they need to do to access the money," Okogwu
said.
At another budget defence session, the Chairman, Senate
Committee on Communications, Sen. Gilbert Nnaji (PDP-Enugu) expressed worry
that Nigeria was still lagging behind in terms of broadband and internet
penetration.
He also wondered why budgetary allocation to the ministry
had been on the decline since its inception.
"It is observed that the total proposal for the
communications technology sector for 2014 is N14.6 billion as against N15.6
billion in 2013.
"We have noticed a gradual decline in the total amount
allocated to the sector since its inception. From N19.6 billion in 2012 to
N15.6 billion in 2013.
"We further observe that the total Capital Expenditure
proposal of N4 billion for 2014 is about 23 per cent reduced from N5.2 billion
approved in 2013," Nnaji said.
Nnaji urged the ministry to enlighten the committee on how
it would utilise this fund to properly execute its programmes and policies.
He gave the assurance that the committee would assist the
ministry in whatever way it could.
Comments
Post a Comment