Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen, has said Nigeria requires an estimated N600billion to have paved network that will increase the current 65,000 kilometres of road to over 200,000 by 2020.
The minister stated this at the Association of Professional Women Engineers of Nigeria Public Lecture on Road Sector Reform for Sustainable Roads Development.
He said for the nation to move forward, it requires a sustainable economy commensurate with the Vision 20:2020.
“It needs to increase the total road network from the current 200,000 km to about 300,000 km by 2020.
“The paved network will need to increase from the current 65,000 km to over 200,000 by the year 2020.
“This requires the construction or paving of an average 14,000 km of road every year requiring an estimated N600billion per year,” he noted.
Onolememen noted that the nation’s huge investment in road infrastructure has not been with a commensurate attention to the need for maintenance and assets preservation.
He said that as a result of years of neglect, the national road network has been characterised by pavement and structural failures due to inadequate programmed routine and periodic maintenance or total neglect.
The minister, who tasked female engineers to play a crucial role in the new development towards the provision of a sustainable road infrastructure, stressed that a comprehensive reform of the Nigerian roads sector remains a panacea for a sustainable road infrastructure.
According to him, “experience has shown that there is a direct link between economic growth, size and condition of road network and therefore the nexus between road development and economic growth made it imperative for the improvement of road network in new ways, requiring a paradigm change in the institutional structures that will separate policy, regulation, operation and management of roads in pivotal to Road Sector Reform.”
Earlier, President of the Association of Professional Women Engineers of Nigeria, Olayinka Ayoyemei Abdul, thanked the minister, assuring that female engineers will in their capacity as friends, companions, mothers and colleagues, do their best towards supporting the ministry in carrying out its mandate.
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