Minister commends SURE-P over east-west road

The Supervising Minister for the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, Arch. Darius Ishaku, has commended the management of the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P), for making 100 per cent release of the budgetary provision for the East-west project in 2013.
He made this commendation at a meeting with the Chairman of SURE-P, General Martin Luther Agwai, convened to assess the progress of the project and the contribution of the fund towards its completion.

He  said the intervention by SURE-P in 2013 had contributed immensely towards the realisation of the road project.
He the economic importance of the road to Nigeria and urged SURE-P to consider an increase in the budgetary provisions it made for the road project in 2014.

He said the provision of N30 billion for the project in the 2014 budget of the Ministry was inadequate, pointing out that if more money was not made available the target date envisaged for completing the project may be shifted to the first quarter of 2015 instead of the end of December 2014.
He emphasised the urgent need to complete the 15-kilometre Port-Harcourt-Onne portion of the road to reduce traffic hold-up in the city,assuring that it would be given top priority.

“I can assure Nigerians that the work will continue and concluded once the funding issues are addressed,” he said.
Earlier, the Chairman of SURE – P, Gen. Martins Luther Agwai, the programme committee was mandated to accelerate Nigeria’s economic transformation through investment in critical infrastructure to achieve vision 20:20 20 of the federal government.

He hailed Minister for making positive impact on the Niger Delta region, saying SURE-P had new projects to undertake in the 2014 budget despite competing demands on its lean resources.

He however, emphasised that new strategies would be evolved in close collaboration with the Ministry to complete the project which he described as linking diverse communities in the Niger Delta and generate more effective socio-economic and political intercourse in the region.