The National Assembly has said that the Federal Road Maintenance Agency is poorly funded and has advocated increased budgetary allocation for improved roads.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on FERMA, Hussaini Uba stated this during a joint sitting of the Senate and House Committees on FERMA at the hearing of the presentation of the FERMA 2023 Performance/2024 Budget Defence.
The Agency’s Director of Communications and Public Relations, Mrs Maryam Sanusi in a statement in Abuja on Thursday quoted Uba as saying that FERMA could not meet up with the people’s expectation of making all roads motorable and safe for users because the annual budgetary allocation to FERMA falls grossly below what the agency needs to carry out its mandate of maintaining federal roads across the nation.
He said the poor condition of federal roads across the country is unimaginable and calls for urgent attention to ameliorate the suffering of road users, and he enjoined FERMA to invest more in stakeholders’ engagement and publicity to enable its achievements, challenges, and aspirations to be heard and appreciated by the general public.
He also encouraged FERMA to effectively communicate their progress and challenges to NASS Committees on FERMA so that they will be on the same page with the Agency.
He said, “The poor condition of federal roads across the country is unimaginable and calls for urgent attention to ameliorate the suffering of road users.
“FERMA is doing a good job within the limited means, but it is not appreciated because the bit it is doing is only able to affect a small percentage of the people”
Join our twitter community :