By Daniel Tyokua
The Minister of Works, David Umahi has identified deplorable state of roads in the country as major cause of inflation.
He disclosed this during the inauguration of Board of FERMA in Abuja, yesterday.
Umahi said, bad roads have been affecting every aspect of the economy, like transportation, petroleum products, agricultural tools, trade and industry even tourism, education and health systems.
He said, ” If we fix our roads, we will bring down inflection in this country. The bad road is affecting every aspect of our economic activities.
“A rich man could send his children to a private school or hospital but can never drive on a private road. This is a common denominator for everyone of us and I want to thank Mr. President just for coming into office, he has approved supplementary budget for about 260 different sizes of palliatives, projects were embarked to address the menace that was caused by the mass flood today.
“The contractors will start to receive their awards and will be called to site as soon as they receive the award letters. Mr. President understands the plight of our people as far as infrastructure is concerned.
“He is doing everything within the budget and outside the budget to fix the roads and I want to assure Nigerians on behalf of Mr. President, like our hopes are renewed. Tackling of road infrastructure will be fixed within the next few years we will see very serious tremendous transformation in most of our roads all over the country.
” The President has directed for a review of the activities of FERMA, myself and the executive head of service have been directed by Federal Executive Council to take a look and review. It is to give authority to some of you that are representing the zones.”
Meanwhile, the Managing Director, FERMA, Chukwuemeka Agbasi pleaded to dispense his responsibilities with the fear of God and align to the policies of the Federal Ministry of Works.
” We also pledge to make visible difference to the road conditions and travelling seamless in this country. We thank everyone for joining us today, also noted is the charge by the Minister to us that we must reduce vehicle operating cost and travel costs.”
