Nigerian Government on Monday says it requires whooping sum of N10 trillion ($32.8 billion at $305/$ exchange rate) infrastructural bond in the next 10 years.
Babatunde Fashola, Minister for Power, Works and Housing disclosed this during the 2018/2019 budget defence by the House Committee on Works, chaired by Toby Okechukwu (PDP-Enugu).
The Minister who affirmed that the present administration is constrained to operate within the current budgetary limits, however observed that it has considerably scaled up performance using the issuance of Sukuk Bond. According to him, government has no allocation control on the Sukuk bond.
Fashola therefore called for the issuance of N10 trillion infrastructure Bond which can take care of the nation’s infrastructural issues and deficit going forward.
“If such is created, we can draw from it without resorting to the annual budget, but of course with legislative backing to solve our problems once and for all,” he said.
In the interim, the Minister reiterated expressed President Muhammadu Buhari’s resolve to sign the Road Infrastructure Fund Bill, provided the provisions do not conflict with existing laws governing the sector.
A breakdown of the 2018 appropriation showed that a total of N715.6 billion was allocated, out of which the sum of N399.4 billion was for capital.
The main Ministry, he said got N56.7 billion while Parastatals got N42.639 billion, and Overhead for the ministry took N13.23 billion, as Personnel cost gulped N17.25 billion.
On the implementation, he explained that the sum of N144.263 billion was released for capital, representing 40.4 percent of the appropriated fund.
Fashola said an additional release N27.5 billion from the Sukuk bond was made, taking the total to 48.1 percent.
He said there are several certificates that have accrued for work done which were not captured due to delay in payment which made it impossible to include in the rate of implementation, saying that contractors are still working and opening new sites.
Fashola also noted that the ministry is making interventions in public institutions using the national infrastructural maintenance framework which was approved by Federal Executive Council but came late as all budget proposals had been submitted and approved by FEC in 2018.
He appealed to the committee to help facilitate the inclusion of the component in the 2019 budget to enable the correction of electrical, plumbing and general structural issues of buildings relating to federal courts, federal universities.
Speaking to the issue of road construction and rehabilitation relative to the availability of fund from annual appropriations, the committee chairman, Hon. Toby Okechukwu (PDP-Enugu), noted that the minister “has done considerably well in the light of inadequate cash flow from budgetary releases.
Speaking earlier, some of the lawmakers expressed concerns over the slow pace of implementation of the administration’s 7-point priorities.
They observed that most of the federal roads and bridges across the country have become death traps – failing even while still under construction with many others still waiting for attention.
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