2018 budget: NUPENG decries N11.5bn allocation cut on infrastructure

The Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas workers (NUPENG), has condemned the whopping N11.5 billion cuts made by the National Assembly from the proposed allocations in the 2018 national budget.
According to NUPENG President, Prince Williams Akporeha, cutting from allocations meant for crucial and very critical infrastructural projects that have huge socio-economic impacts on national and regional roads like the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, second Niger Bridge, ancillary roads, East-West Road, and Bonny-Bodo Road, among others, are unhealthy for economic development especially as efforts are being made to consolidate on growth after recession .
“To say the least, it is unreasonable and insensitive to the yearning needs of the people our parliamentarians claim to represent. More painfully, these ill-informed decisions have the potential of impacting negatively on the nation’s economic recovery plans,” he said.
Akporeha said Nigerians are still in shock that these critical trunk roads which play significant roles, particularly in the value chain of the oil and gas downstream sector and other critical economic activities in the country, would be expunged from the national budget at a time the union was craving for state of emergency on Nigerian roads.
He said, “NUPENG strongly believes that the constitutional direction of a national budget must be patriotically designed to consolidate achievements of previous budgets so as to deliver on Nigeria’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) which is the same line of logical, reasonable and responsible thought process that we expect from our federal lawmakers.”
He said the union cannot afford to fold its hands while its hardworking and patriotic members’ lives are being carelessly wasted on the highways as well as facing unimaginable hazards on the roads.