The Federal Government through the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) has concluded plans to fill up the potholes and intervene in the repair of failed portions of federal roads nationwide as the rainy season sets in.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), this was made known by the acting Managing Director, FERMA, Mr Godson Amos, during an interview on Sunday, July 9, 2023, in Abuja.
Amos said the intervention became necessary due to the need to ameliorate the hardship and delays road users face daily on the highway.
Repairs are to be done within 6 weeks
The FERMA boss expressed optimism that the intervention would be achieved within 6 weeks of the commencement and all potholes and road failure worked on, on federal roads across the country.
He said he had gotten reports across the country of the deplorable Federal Roads across the country which had caused a lot of inconveniences to road users, adding that this has hampered economic activities due to the inability of the people to freely move goods from one place to the other.
- He said, ”The failures on the roads are mostly caused by the incessant rainfall being experienced in many parts of the country, which results in cutting off of roads embankment and collapsing of many carriageway sections at many locations across the country.
- “Also excessive traffic, overloading of vehicles coupled with the age of the roads are other factors that have contributed to the dilapidation of the federal roads.
- “This hinders the free flow of traffic, causing colossal damages to vehicles, wastages of productive man hours and huge discomfort to road users.
- “Our of engineers in the Field Offices have already carried out a route condition survey of the Federal Roads and have identified all critical failures like road embankments washout and failed carriageway section for the agency to take action.”
Direct labour to be deployed
Speaking on how the agency would executive this intervention, Amos said direct labour would be deployed by engaging skilled and unskilled youths in the communities.
He further said that appraisals have been made, including the assessment of works requirement, and estimation of resources like men, materials and machines that will be deployed to achieve the most cost-effective result.
Amos said in order to ensure that maximum results were achieved the agency had designed a good monitoring mechanism for effective and efficient monitoring of all the projects nationwide deploying a management team for inspection.
He identified funding as a major challenge in the maintenance of the 36,000 kilometres of federal highways all year round.
What you should know
Nigerians have been faced with the agony of dealing with the deplorable state of federal roads across the country.
This has sometimes in the past necessitated the intervention of the National Assembly with calls on the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing to commence immediate repair of federal roads nationwide as they are in a terrible and pathetic state and in some cases not motorable.
That the roads all over the country are in a terrible and pathetic state is not in doubt. There is hardly any state that can boast of having good motorable roads.
Although the Federal Government through several initiatives like its Road Infrastructure Development and Refurbishment Investment Task Credit Scheme, Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) and others, has tried to improve the road infrastructure over the years, however, the road infrastructure deficit is quite huge.
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Source: Nairematrics
