The House of Representatives has charged the Federal Ministry of Works to allocate 20 per cent of its 2025 Appropriation to the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency to enhance its operations.

This resolution was a sequel to the adoption of a motion on the “Need to increase the budgetary allocation to the Federal Road Maintenance Agency for the maintenance and repairs of federal roads across the country,” moved by Aderemi Oseni, at Tuesday’s plenary.

Leading the debate, Oseni noted that the Federal Government was committed to enhancing economic activities and productivity by ensuring the effective maintenance and repair of federal roads throughout the year.

The lawmaker, however, expressed worries that the majority of the federal roads across the country were in a state of disrepair, thus causing economic loss to governments and citizens due to years of neglect

Oseni said, “The Federal Roads Maintenance Agency is the agency with the mandate to maintain and rehabilitate all federal roads across the country and has been doing its best with the paltry budgetary allocation it receives annually.

“This cannot make any significant impact due to the large number of roads across the country that need urgent repairs and rehabilitation.”

He added that the inadequate funding of FERMA translates to outright neglect in the maintenance of the roads, saying “about N300bn to N500bn is required annually to maintain the federal roads.”

The lawmaker said the annual budget of FERMA had been a meagre sum of about N25bn to N50bn within the last two years, “which is about 10 per cent of the required amount.”

He continued, “The Federal Ministry of Works in the 2024 budget has about N1tn.

“There is a need to allocate 20 per cent of the Ministry of Works’ budget to FERMA in the 2025 budget estimates to enable FERMA to fulfil the purpose of its establishment of maintenance of existing roads,” he added.

The motion was referred to the Committee on Works for further legislative action.