The Nigerian Senate yesterday called on the Federal Government to undertake immediate rehabilitation and construction of major dual-carriage highways across the country.
The call followed a resolution of the Senate on a motion by Senator Dino Melaye (APC-Kogi West), which was co-sponsored by 90 other senators. The senate also charged the Federal Ministry of Works to urgently explore ways to fund the projects.
It directed its Ad-hoc Committee on Works to embark on audit of all road projects across the country, with a view to producing raw data for necessary legislative action. sENATEThe senators agreed on the need to find lasting solution to the increasing number of bad roads in the country, in view of the attendant negative impact on trade and commerce.
The senators lamented that, in spite of trillions of naira spent on road construction and rehabilitation since the return of democracy in the country, there was minimal or no impact.
Supporting the motion, Sen. Sam Egwu (PDP-Ebonyi North) said there was no better time to reconstruct all federal roads in the country than now that Nigeria was working towards diversification of the economy.
He said that federal roads in the Southeastern region had been in bad shape since the end of the Nigerian Civil War, in spite of the contribution of the region to the growth of the economy.
