SENATE SCRAPS FERMA; Replaces it With Federal Roads Authority

With the nation's roads in very deplorable state due to poor maintenance which many stakeholders have attributed to inadequate fundings by government, the Senate on Thursday passed a Bill scrapping Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) which had hitheeto, being saddled the responsibility of maintaining the roads, and replaced it with Federal Roads Authority (FRA).


The new bill which has being passed, is expected to give backing to the FRA, sponsored by Senator Kabiru Gaya (Kano-APC), was read for the third time at plenary before it was passed through a unanimous vote by the senators.

However, the Senate, rejected the report on National Road Funds as it was stepped down for further legislative action.

There had been too much controversy generated by the proposed Road Funds Bill following alleged plans to introduce additional N5 fuel levy as one of the major sources of financing the fund.

Senator Kabiru Gaya, one of the major sponsors of the bill, had explained that it would "provide a predictable funding for roads in Nigeria".

According to him, "it would create environment for effective participation of public-private-partnership".

"The idea of road funds was not new, citing examples from countries like Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana, Malawi, Togo and United States where funds were generated from fuel levy" Gaya said.

"Nigeria can generate N94 billion annually from fuel levy to help fund roads in the country", he stressed.

"The levy would be paid directly into signatory account of the National Road Funds, while the Nigeria Customs Service would be responsible for the remittance", he added.

Contributing on the issue, Sen. Kabiru Marafa (Zamfara-APC) said it was not entirely correct that the proposed N5 fuel levy was captured in the industry’s template.

According to Marafa, the plan to introduce N5 fuel levy would further put pressure on an already stressed petroleum downstream sector and cause hardship for the people.

He therefore advised the Committee on Works to explore other areas such as toll fee or any other road taxes, cautioning strongly against fuel levy in whatever guise.

In his remarks, Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, who presided at plenary, said "the Senate had no plan to increase pump price of petroleum products".

The report was subsequently stepped down to enable other relevant committees go through the content of the Bill.

Vanguard