Federal Government has proposed a total sum of one hundred billion naira for the completion of major federal roads among which are the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Benin-Ore Shagamu Road, Kano-Maiduguri dualisation, among others.
The N100 billion is to be sourced from the SURE-P fund for 2014, which amounts to a total of two hundred and sixty eight billion naira, a breakdown of the budget proposal presented to the National Assembly by the Finance Minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has revealed.
According to the proposal, N20 billion naira was allocated to Lagos-Ibadan Expressway; N20 billion was budgeted for Lokoja-Abuja Road; N10 billion naira to go for Benin-Ore-Sahagamu Road, while Calabar- Katsina Ala Road has N5 billion.
Other roads targeted through the Sure-P fund include Kano-Maiduguri dualisation, which got N12 billion; Port Harcourt-Enugu-Onisha with N11 billion; second Niger Bridge with N10 billion naira as counterparts funding, while special presidential intervention across the country was allocated N12 billion.
The long running East – West Road was also accommodated with a whopping sum of thirty billion naira, while Oweto Bridge got N7 billion.
The budget proposal also targeted investment in rail transportation, with Lagos-Ibadan getting N5 billion naira; Port-Hacourt-Maiduguri rail revitalisation allocated N16 billion and Abuja-Kaduna rail covering track and rolling stock got a total sum of N22 billion naira.
The balance of the fund after the allocations for road and rail projects was allocated to the social safety net programme under Sure-P. A total of N68 billion was allocated to safety nets programmes which include Graduate Internship programme, maternal care, public works, youth, among others.
The executive arm of government had calculated the subsidy removal inflow with a benchmark of N15 billion per month in 12 places for 2014, totalling N180 billion. The unspent balance of N88 billion from 2013 was added to make the total of N268 billion available for spending in 2014.
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