Senate slams Fashola: Stop deceiving NIgerians on 2017 budget

The Senate has cautioned Minister of Works,
Housing and Power, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola,
SAN, to stop spreading wrong information and
half-truth about the 2017 budget as the
legislators worked to ensure equity across the
country on all new and outstanding projects.
In a statement by its spokesperson, Senator
Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, the Senate noted that Mr.
Fashola did not give the public full details about
the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, which has been
on a private finance initiative from the beginning
because he would prefer an arrangement that
allows the Ministry to continue to award
contracts and fund the project through
Government budgetary allocation at a time when
the nation’s revenue is dwindling and at an all
time low.
Abdullahi stated that the Bureau of Public
Procurement, and the Federal Executive Council
in 2013, approved the reconstruction,
rehabilitation and expansion of the Lagos-Ibadan
expressway as a Public Private Partnership
project using the Private Finance Initiative, with
the Federal Government providing about 30
percent of the funding while the balance shall be
provided by the private sector. The project was
on course for completion by end of 2017 when
the private finance initiative was being
implemented, with over 30 percent completion
rate attained as at early 2015.
Abdullahi further noted that in a blatant
disregard for existing agreements, constituted
authorities and extant laws, Fashola on
assumption of office got Government through
the Ministry to start voting money for the
implementation of the project.
“Even as at last year the 2016 Appropriation Act
voted N40 billion for the project on the
insistence of the Ministry and only N26 billion
was released. If we had known, the rest N14
billion could have been allocated to other critical
roads across the country”, he said.
“In the spirit of consensus building and effective
stakeholder engagement, the Leadership of the
Senate met with key relevant stakeholders,
including the Ministries of Works and finance. It
was agreed that we should give the Private
Finance Initiative a chance to complement
Government’s resources in the delivery of
critical infrastructure assets across the country.
“Hence, in this year’s budget, we have engaged
with the Government and private sector groups
who have assured that they will resume funding
of the project. So, we only provided the fund in
the budget that would ensure work does not
stop before the funds from the private sector
start coming in .What we reduced from Lagos-
Ibadan Expressway in the 2017 budget estimate
was spread on Oyo-Ogbomoso road in the
South-west, Enugu-Onitsha road in the South-
east, and two other critical roads in the North-
east and North-west; and this was done to
achieve equity. The Minister should realise he is
Minister for the entire country and not just that
of Lagos State.
“It is our view that the Federal Government
cannot fund the reconstruction and maintenance
of all the 34,000 kilometres of roads under its
care. We are looking for private funds for some
of these roads, particularly those with high
potentials of attracting private investors. These
include the Enugu-Onitsha road, Kano-Abuja
road and Abuja-Lokoja road. It has been our
hope that the Lagos -Ibadan road would be a
model for private sector funding of infrastructure
in the country”, the spokesman stated.
He added that Fashola knew that Federal
Government cannot fully fund this road for
completion by 2019 as he is promising
Nigerians. “It’s deceit of the highest order. Just
going by the last two years of funding where an
average of about N30b per annum was released
then the nation would have to wait for the next
six years for completion of the work .But with
Private sector Finance Initiative, this project can
be completed on time because full funding will
be provided and there will be more certainty”,
he stated.
Abdullahi noted that since Government did not
have enough money and/or unlimited resources
to provide all the needed road infrastructure on
a sustainable basis, the use of funds from the
private sector to complement Government’s
resources would ease pressure on the annual
budgetary provisions for infrastructure provision,
as more money will be spent on less
commercially viable roads that would not
ordinarily attract private sector investment as
well as other social services like education,
health and human capital development.
“The Minister’s statement is in bad taste and we
believe he has been quoted out of context as an
experienced public servant with over 15 years of
high level responsibility will not be uttering such
statements. He should desist from spreading
half-truths. When he said the National Assembly
imported projects into the 2017 budget, he did
not mention that these include the 26 projects
which the Federal Government approved in the
2016 budget, awarded contract for them in
January 2016, but totally omitted them in the
2017 budget. One of them is the Abuja-Kaduna
road. These ones would have become
abandoned projects. We reduced funds across
board to make provision for these omitted
projects that are of critical importance to the
socio-economic development of the country in
line with equity and fair play.
“Mr. Fashola obviously wants the Federal
Ministry of Works to have many construction
projects it can award contracts for and that is
why he would always oppose any attempt to
allow the private sector financing initiatives
through Public Private Partnerships or other
levels of Government to fund construction of
roads under the control of the Federal
Government. That was why he waited until he
was arm-twisted on the Lagos Airport road
before he allowed the Lagos State Government
take up the reconstruction, using private funds.
Same thing happened to the proposal for the
Apapa Wharf road, which was frustrated for over
a year before the stakeholders reined in the
Ministry to grudgingly approve that Dangote and
Flour Mills should take over the project.
“It should also be explained that nobody
introduced budgetary provisions for the sinking
of boreholes and construction of clinics under
the budget of the Works division of the Ministry.
However, the Housing division would ordinarily
have provision for such facilities in its estimate,
so as to meet the Sustainable Development
Goals as provided for by the United Nations .
This is aimed at reducing slums and improve
the well-being of our citizenry.
“The National Assembly already have an
agreement with the Acting President of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria, Professor Yemi
Osinbajo, that if for example, the Private Finance
Initiative does not materialize to provide the
needed funds for the completion of the Lagos-
Ibadan Expressway, just as in other areas where
government has issues with the budget, the
instruments of Virement and supplementary
budget can be used. This is as a result of our
belief that it is one Government and we all share
the gains of the successes and pains of the
failure. However, with all these blackmail game
and backbiting going on, they are already laying
the foundation for the failure of the agreement
with the Executive”, he stated.
Abdullahi added that the National Assembly
acted in the national interest to ensure equity
and fairness is achieved in the distribution of
projects and to ensure that all sections of the
country have representation in the national
budget as guaranteed by the Nigerian
constitution.