Abuja –\u00a0 The Minister of Works, Mr Mike Onolememen, said on Tuesday in
\nAbuja that N117 billion will be spent to construct the second Niger
\nBridge.
\nOnolememen made this known while defending the ministry\u2019s budget before
\nthe Sen. Abdul Ningi (PDP-Bauchi) led Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Subsidy
\nReinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P).
\nThe minister said that N30 billion of the amount would be sourced from the
\nSURE-P while the balance would come from the private sector partners.
\n\u201cWhat government set up to do from the beginning was that the N30 billion
\ncounterpart fund for the second Niger Bridge was going to be paid through
\nthe SURE-P.
\n\u201cIt was postulated that every year, the sum of N10 billion would be
\nprovided in the SURE-P for the second Niger Bridge and because it did not
\ntake off in 2012, we downgraded the allocation until the project takes
\noff.\u201d
\nAccording to him, there is massive mobilisation going on now at the
\nlocation and the ground breaking ceremony will be done before the middle
\nof March.
\n\u201cBefore mid-March, the ground breaking for the major work will be done,
\nand from then on full construction will commence.
\n\u201cI am sure that the project will be able to access all its funds at a
\ntime, N7 billion had earlier been used for the preparatory work on the
\nbridge.
\n\u201cThroughout last year what we were doing was the early work; phase one for
\nthe second Niger bridge.
\n\u201cWe went to the site, we did a lot of preparatory studies, morhpological
\nstudies and geotanical studies which led to the final design of the bridge
\nand preparation of the bill for engineering measurement and evaluation.\u201d
\nHe said that approval had been given for the early work on phase two which
\nwould cost about N15 billion.
\n\u201cThe money for this year, N10 billion that has been appropriated will
\nappropriately be devoted to that.
\n\u201cIt is part of the major work of the bridge, in other words, that N15
\nbillion is part of the total sum for the completion of that bridge.
\nThe minister, however, said that the completion of the project would
\ndepend on the availability of funds.
\nThe Director General of the Budget Office, Dr Bright Okogu, said what the
\nministry needed to do to access the N30 billion SURE-P funds was to go
\nthrough the SURE-P Secretariat Committee.
\n\u201cAll they have to do is to go through the SURE-P secretariat committee,
\nindicate evidence of work done, ask the chairman and his team to send
\npeople to go and witness and certify.
\n\u201cThen, they will make a claim based on that particular observation. This
\nis all they need to do to access the money,\u201d Okogwu said.
\nAt another budget defence session, the Chairman, Senate Committee on
\nCommunications, Sen. Gilbert Nnaji (PDP-Enugu) expressed worry that
\nNigeria was still lagging behind in terms of broadband and internet
\npenetration.
\nHe also wondered why budgetary allocation to the ministry had been on the
\ndecline since its inception.
\n\u201cIt is observed that the total proposal for the communications technology
\nsector for 2014 is N14.6 billion as against N15.6 billion in 2013.
\n\u201cWe have noticed a gradual decline in the total amount allocated to the
\nsector since its inception. From N19.6 billion in 2012 to N15.6 billion in
\n2013.
\n\u201cWe further observe that the total Capital Expenditure proposal of N4
\nbillion for 2014 is about 23 per cent reduced from N5.2 billion approved
\nin 2013,\u201d Nnaji said.
\nNnaji urged the ministry to enlighten the committee on how it would
\nutilise this fund to properly execute its programmes and policies.
\nHe gave the assurance that the committee would assist the ministry in
\nwhatever way it could.(NAN)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Abuja –\u00a0 The Minister of Works, Mr Mike Onolememen, said on Tuesday in Abuja that N117 billion will be spent to construct the second Niger Bridge. Onolememen made this known…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n