The proposal of the sum of N77,390,766,140 has been presented by the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) for the 2024 budget amidst calls for increased annual budgetary allocation for the agency.
The Managing Director/CEO FERMA, Engr. (Dr.) Chukwuemeka Agbasi, revealed 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 in Abuja.
FERMA’s Director (Comm./PR), Maryam M. Sanusi (Mrs.), in a statement, said the breakdown includes; total personnel – N4,081,099,533; total overhead – N22,027,209,696 ; total recurrent N26,108,309,229, while total capital, which is meant for the maintenance of all the over 36,000km of federal roads is N51,282,456,911.
The roads selected for the 2024 capital budget proposal, according to the MD/CEO, were based on equitable distribution to the six (6) geopolitical zones of the country, adding that “Priorities were given to major trunk A roads within the zones that would key into Mr. President’s priority areas of National Development and Economic Recovery; roads that would massively improve movement of persons, goods, services and agricultural produce to boost food security and economic wellbeing of the citizen”.
Engr. Chukwuemeka Agbasi further added that the 2024 budget included the rollover of some projects with completion periods exceeding the 2023 fiscal year to ensure 100% execution.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on FERMA, Sen. Hussaini Babangida Uba, at the hearing, said the poor condition of federal roads across the country is unimaginable and calls for urgent attention to ameliorate the suffering of road users.
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