The Minister of Power Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola and the National President of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG), Comrade Williams Akporeha have disagreed over the state of Nigerian roads and their impact on the nation’s economy.
While the Union wants the federal government to declare a state of emergency on Nigerian roads in other to attract t urgent attention, the Minister said there was no need to declare any emergency since the government is already doing enough to ensure that the roads are put in proper and motorable state.
Both men spoke at the 4th quadrennial delegates conference of the Petroleum Tanker Driver branch of NUPENG in Abuja, just as the National President of the National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), Albania Kassim Ibrahim Bataiya asked the government to introduce user charges on all federal roads as a primary means of generating money to maintain and rehabilitate the roads in addition to annual budgetary allocation.
Fashola who delivered the key note address said since the government is already addressing the state of Nigerian roads, there was no need declaring a state of emergency on the roads because a state of emergency means giving urgent attention to an issue.
He said the federal government was working on at least one major road in each of the 36 states of the federation, adding that currently, work was going on in about 300 roads across the country.
He said that the Buhari government has spent about N300 billion on roads, adding that out of the N18billion budgeted for roads in the 2015 budget, only N9 billion was paid.
While criticizing such a merge budget for roads by the federal government, he said “the last budget I left in Lagos state for roads was N74 billion and yet, the federal government budgeted N18 billion.
The Minister caution the tanker drivers against over loading and over speeding, stressing that while over loading destroy the road easily, over speeding account for about 70 of accidents on Nigerian roads, while bad roads account for less than 10 percent.
On his part, the NUPENG President who was making his first official outing at the event said the life and safety of tanker drivers depend on good roads, pointing out that even though government is already taking steps to address the state of the roads, more still need to be done and quickly.
He said “An average Petroleum Tanker Driver, who is actively on the wheel, spends most of his working life in the road traversing from one loading location to several discharge locations, all to get the economy on the Nation going, his safety, health, prosperity, promotion.m effectiveness and even life expectancy depend almost entirely in the state of road infrastructure.
“We know that the present regime has been working hard to properly fix our highways. But a lot still need to be done. In the light of this, we earnestly call on the federal government to declare a state of emergency on Nigerian roads so as to attract urgent attention as no economy thrives without good roads and effective transpiration system.”
Comrade Akporeha said the union was making efforts to increase its membership strength as well as introduce new sources of revenue, saying “strength of any trade union is in the number of its membership. Our recruitment and operational activities will be geared toward organizing more members into the union. Aside increasing the membership strength, of the union.
“It is also our plan of action to diversify and increase the number of sources of income for the union. We plan to leverage on our strength and opportunities in the downstream sector to achieve they providing key services in the industry as having mega filling stations across the country and building ultra-modern petroleum tanker parks in every zone of the union.
“We have all these noble and lofty ideas and dreams. It is our firm belief that with the unrelenting support of Petroleum Tanker Drivers, they are all achievable within the time line we set. We urge you all to continue to support us as we promise to run a union that is accountable, transparent and have high regards for members and branches.”
NARTO president, Kassim Bataiya said the government should continue the funding of road construction and maintenance, while attracting additional, funding through private sector investment, while actualising the concessionary lease of some major roads infrastructure to willing private entrepreneurs/international consortium on a Build, Operate and Transfer basis.
Bataiya also want the government to involve major stakeholders in the road transport sector like NARTO in road infrastructural development through leasing out some federal roads, while also allowing willing state government to take over some major federal roads.
