The Nation Newspaper

Tag: FERMA

  • Can we count on FERMA?

    Can we count on FERMA?

    •The agency once again promised to repair all bad roads. But we’ve heard that before

    The deplorable state of federal roads, especially in the south-west, has suddenly caught the attention of the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA). But we do not know how far this would go, especially when there was a presidential directive by the Presidency to FERMA, months ago, that all critical Federal Government highways must be fixed by December 2012. Already, we are almost mid-way into the second month of the year and nothing concrete has taken place on these strategic federal roads.

    The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, for instance, has consistently been an object of ridicule for years. Could the problem be that of inadequate funding? FERMA reportedly requires about N320 billion yearly to maintain and put in shape Nigeria’s 194,200 kilometres of roads. According to Olajide Adeniji, the agency’s chairman, 34 percent of this sum will be required for the federal road networks, 16 percent for state roads and 50 percent for local government roads.

    In our view, FERMA should concentrate on federal roads rehabilitation that falls within its purview. After all, despite the fact that the Federal Government spent over N1.05 trillion to develop road networks between 1976 and 2012, during which hundreds of kilometres were purportedly improved, rehabilitated and maintained, the state of roads, especially federal roads across the country, remains pathetic.

    What then has FERMA been doing since inception when its impact cannot be felt by the populace? With the awful state of federal roads across the country, we doubt if the agency has attained its professed 35 per cent efficiency since its establishment.

    We can count quite a few of these bad roads which include: Benin-Asaba-Onitsha Road, Benin-Shagamu (Ofusu-Ajebandele) Road; Benin-Ekpoma-Auchi Road, Sagamu-Port-Harcourt, Lokoja-Abuja and Ewu-Uromi-Agbor roads. Even more obvious are the numerous dangerous craters on the Lagos-Abeokuta and Lagos-Ibadan expressways that are begging for FERMA’s attention. What has happened to the zero potholes target set by the agency? What has happened to the all-important presidential ultimatum of December, 2012?

    In view of this not so inspiring performance and disregard for presidential order, we are not surprised that FERMA still has the effrontery of coming out to pledge its commitment to the rehabilitation, this year, of major highways in the south-west geo-political zone. This is in spite of the fact that the south-west is just one of the six geo-political zones in the nation with roads, that require attention. Most roads in the south-south, south-east and north-central, among others, must be attended to by FERMA as a matter of urgency.

     

  • FAAN’s Aircraft Wealth to Waste; Mali; The Highway War: FERMA vs State vs citizens

    FAAN’s Aircraft Wealth to Waste; Mali; The Highway War: FERMA vs State vs citizens

    As Nigeria’s President boasts 4,700Mw as an ‘achievement’, the world frowns at the poverty of purposeful Nigerian governance over 40 years. But the leaders Obasanjo1, Buhari, Babangida, Abdulsalami, Obasanjo2 do not apologise. Some show avarice, seeking profit from failure, getting new electricity contracts. African leaders seeking legacies should ‘Go Solar’ before someone sells our sunshine to America.

    The Minister of Aviation should intervene in FAAN’s instruction for old planes to be removed or they will be sold as scrap for plates and spoons –‘A New FAAN Scientific Aircraft-Wealth-to-Kitchen-Waste Programme.’ Bad! We all saw the Space Shuttle Atlantis piggybacked across America. Can Nigeria send the planes for display/dissection to universities/polytechnics by an Aviation Ministry/FAAN phone call to Vice Chancellors/Provosts/Ministries of Education or Science? What country misses this chance to teach live aircraft technology to youth? Nigeria of course! At least one plane left in each airport can kick-start new Airport Museums/Exhibition Centres.

    International reporters on the Mali war, should not reveal military detail on Breaking News. This puts soldiers at risk.

    The on-going Highway War in Nigeria between states and citizens opens the roads and improves IGR, Internally Generated Revenue. When is IGR ‘IGRobbery’? There are new combatants, 3000 FERMA federal recruits, under ‘employment drive’ as highway soldiers. The FERMA will copy, counter and cancel the financial and political successes of state highway soldiers at Ogere, Lagos expressway end etc, forcing them to withdraw to state roads. Will FERMA’s tactics also be ‘pouncing’, extortion, bribery, threats of violence and entrapment without warning or signboards?

    Why are highway soldiers never ‘friendly’ or ‘helpful’ even for an ‘Act of God’ flat tyre, engine failure or not-your-fault accident? A person with those is ‘Not A Traffic Offender’! Distinguish between a traveller-in-need-of-help and a wilful-traffic-offender and offer service not censure.

    Why do we only adopt half of anything from abroad leaving maximum room for ABC – Abuse, Bribery, Corruption? Where are the – ‘Traffic Offence Tickets’ and ‘2-4 Weeks To Pay The Fine’, a helping hand or a ‘Preventive Measure Is Better Than Cure’, Cautionary Announcement, or 1st and 2nd Warning? In Nigeria you ‘Arrest’ for a simple ‘apologisable’ mistake. The training is AAA, Arrest-Arrest-Arrest or ‘Arass- Arass-Arass’ as in ‘Harass’ and not ‘Help’. Without the civility of warning signs, directions, ‘advice to move’ they, by powers-invested-in-them, unseen edicts, bye-laws and ‘arrogance-of-uniform’, they intimidate, extort, seize vehicles and demand immediately payable fines of N25,000 which only politicians think is small and carry around. The Nigerian road fines are outrageous, disproportionate to income. N25,000 for cars is 1.5 months or 45 days minimum wage. The same N25,000 or £100 fine is imposed in London where it is just 2-4 days minimum wage. The equivalent fine based on London’s wages would be £500-700.

    Reduce the fines to N2,500 or increase the minimum wage to N120,000-240,000/month. Having been saved by IGP Abubakar from N12-24billion annual extortion at police checkpoints, is the Nigerian traveller to suffer from unsupervised FERMA? Gear-up for a new FERMA para-military onslaught. Instead of developing our roads with strong teams of road signs providers, instant year-round pothole fillers and road lane wideners during the ‘dry seasons’ of the last 30 years, FERMA just copies state highway soldiers. Federal Ministry of Works, please concentrate on rainy season pothole filling, increasing and improving Nigeria’s road surfaces and networks. Do not ‘police’ rubbish roads!

    Highway soldiers lay traps and want roads without cars. BEWARE WHERE YOU STOP AND SHOP. Avoid stopping when hailed by a vendor who may be colluding in an ensnarement scam. Tyres, batteries and luggage may be ‘flattened’ or disappear during arrest. In Nigeria the best plans are distorted, disrupted and destroyed by the implementers who see‘power’ and ‘bribes’, not ‘service’. This is exactly like Nigeria’s politics –a failure. Let someone start a road blog/website FERMAWatch to post our experiences with these Highway soldiers.

    To curb youthful arrogance and dishonesty, highway soldiers need supervision by honest, fair and sympathetic supervisors. The honest supervisors are oppressed by under-budgeting. Many demand and or receive corruption-driven presents, cash-filled envelopes as routine ‘Please give us a pass mark’. This has been taken to mega-levels by NASS whose supervisors of national budgetary activities regularly disgrace themselves by demanding or happily receiving ‘gifts’ during ‘oversight functions’. Can the reported outcomes, the televised insults or praise during subsequent public sittings and NASS sessions be traced to gifts-a bribe? Such bribes are worthy of resignation, prosecution of the politicians. All Hail Oteh, the only CEO bold enough to ‘whistleblow’ this extortion.

    In addition to ambulances, waste trucks, tractors, buses, bridges and flyovers, busy Oyo State Governor Ajimobi has empowered Local Inspectors of Education, LIEs with inspection vehicles. Great! The country should provide something to inspect/supervise. Fill Nigeria’s schools with books, science and sports equipment. Text and library books, not exercise books!

    The Oyo State Retreat at the University of Ibadan afforded welcome long-abandoned Town/Gown interaction. UI/ NISER have been ignored except for taxation. During the retreat, the Ministry of Environment’s YESO army interacted by advancing on the citizenry in an unnecessarily belligerent manner, for Internally Generated Revenue. Pity! Three of my clinic nurses paid a total of N75,000 for ‘illegal parking’ on the Yemetu road, Ibadan. No warning. No signboard. Just pounce, arrest, seize car overnight, fine. It should not be necessary to extort money by IGRobbery, to buy development. Law-abiding citizens need instructions not accusations of anti-government agendas. Citizens also went to UI.

  • FERMA fixing Enugu-Port Harcourt road for Yuletide

    •Promises motorists free ride in December 

     

    Motorists and commuters in the eastern part of the country will not ply bad roads in December, as the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) has begun the rehabilitation of the bad portions of the 200 kilometres Enugu–Port Harcourt Expressway.

    The Managing Director of the agency, Gabriel Amunchi, said the bad portions would be fixed to enable road users have a free ride during the Yuletide.

    He spoke yesterday when he inspected work on the dual carriage way.

    Amunchi said the Federal Government was considering reconstructing the road, adding that the long years of neglect and the large number of trucks on it had compounded the situation.

    Describing the road as having ‘failed beyond repairs’, the FERMA Managing Director said four contractors and direct labour operators have been engaged to ensure the speedy completion of the repairs before December.

    He said: “This is a road that has been in a bad state for over four years now. Since this administration came to power, it has been working to ensure that a major maintenance work is done to put the road in a good condition before December. So, the maintenance we are doing now is in several segments that include direct labour operations and selected repairs. It is in line with the mandate of this administration to ensure we fix the road before December. In this location, you will see that FERMA has started major repairs. It has removed the garbage on the road. We are going to do a similar thing on other expressways.”

    Amunchi said the agency would soon remove the trailers parked on the road at Lokpanta to ensure free movement.

     

  • Reps blame FERMA, contractor for state of N300m road project

    Reps blame FERMA, contractor for state of N300m road project

    Members of the House of Representatives’Committee on  have expressed shock over a project in Niger State that has not been started, despite that the contractor has been mobilised to move to site.

    The lawmakers were on an oversight function in the state to ascertain the level of implementation of this year’s budget.

    Four of five projects allocated to the state have been awarded and mobilisation paid by FERMA.

    However, on-the-spot assessment of the projects contradicted the reports given to the committee, which showed that work had started on one of the roads as the contractor had been mobilised.

    But the contractor handling the project, Enerco Nigeria Limited, claimed it has not been mobilised.

    A member of the committee,  Abdulrazak Zaki, said: “We are angry because they misled us. We were told that work has commenced on site only to get here and discover that it was at zero level. We would not have embarked on this tour if documents presented to us by the agency showed otherwise.

    While he questioned the essence of the oversight, the lawmaker alleged connivance between the agency and the contractor on the state of the project.

    “What is the essence of our coming here? We are not happy and our job is to let Nigerians know what is happening.

    We are not here to cover anything up. To me, the so- called fight against corruption by the Executive is just a farce because they give cover to corruption,” he added.

    Another member, Dr Abiola, said the discovery has supported the need for physical inspection of infrastructural projects across the country by the lawmakers.

    “It is rather unfortunate to have travelled all the way from Abuja, over such a long distance only to see nothing and all we could hear was that the contract was awarded two weeks ago and nothing to show for it.

    “When the legislators are showing concern over the level of budget implementation for 2012, that it is nothing to write home about, it is for occurrences like this.

    “It shows insincerity on the part of the agency, because I want to believe that there is no reason for this lack of activity if they have been given money. I just don’t understand the reason we should be taken to where nothing is happening. That is just the most ridiculous aspect of it,” she said.

    Chairman of the Committee, Gregory Chukwuegbo, who also expressed disappointment, however, corrected the impression of being misled to a zero performance site, saying: “ I believe why we were brought here was that we requested for the 2012 budget, but the on-going Mokwa project was for 2010/2011 budget year.”

    According to the Chief Maintenance Engineer, who disclosed that about N300million would be spent to recover the 20km affected portion of the 165km road, the project was to make the road motorable and prevent it from collapse.

    The committee promised to return to the site before the end of the year to ascertain progress of work.

  • FG orders FERMA to fill potholes by December

    The Presidency has directed the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) to get rid of potholes on federal roads before December.

    The zonal coordinator South – South Zone 11 of FERMA, Engr. Jimoh Kajogbola, disclosed this at the weekend while flagging-off newly- awarded contracts for road maintenance in the zone at Illah, Delta State along the Benin-Asaba-Onitsha dual carriage way.

    He said maintenance of roads that were not under contract by the Federal Ministry of Works (Highways Department) would be executed through contracts and direct labour by the end of November.

    FERMA Executive Director in charge of Road Maintenance Services, Alhaji Garuba Mubi, said the agency has awarded over 50 major road contracts and no fewer than one hundred emergency road contracts to ensure that the December deadline given by the Presidency is met.

    According to him: “We are going for operation zero potholes and that will engage virtually the whole management. All of us will be involved; we are also going to be part of inspection of the contracts executed all over the nation up to December, 2012.

    “We are going to ensure that the contractors are done according to FERMA specifications and on schedule.”

    He added: “We are also going to ensure that the potholes are minimised or new zero before December 2012.

    “What we are begging essentially is for the National Assembly to graciously support Mr. President and consider the case of road maintenance and the time of work with the budget up to March next year”.

    He listed the contracts in the South-South Zone 11 made up of Edo, Delta and Ondo states to include: General repairs and pavement strengthening of the Benin – Shagamu (Ofusu – Ajabandele dual carriageway) awarded to Messers Sunny Bounce Resources; General maintenance repairs and selected shoulder reinstatement along Benin- Ekpoma – Auchi Road awarded to Messers Ffordiac and Pavement strengthening and shoulder reinstatement along Ewu- Uromi- Agbor Road, awarded to Messers ARC Marine & Civil Eng Ltd, among others.