The President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration has disclosed on Wednesday that it is owing construction firms handling 711 road projects across the country, the sum of N392bn.
This was made in a statement by Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, in Abuja during the budget defence session before the Senate Committee on Works.
The Minister said the N392bn debt was far higher than the N276bn proposed for road projects in 2021.
He said it had become imperative to stop awarding contracts for new projects in order to complete the existing ones.
He said N6.62trillion was needed to fund the 711 road projects across the country, noting that the unavailability of resources had made prioritizing very important.
When the chairman of the committee, Senator Adamu Aliero suggested that the funds in the custody of the National Pension Commission be used to fund some of the road projects, Fashola said he was not in a position to do that.