Abdullahi M. Gulloma
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved N126 billion for construction of 12 roads in Enugu, Bauchi, Borno, Adamawa, Kwara, Gombe, Yola and Kaduna states.
The meeting of the council, which lasted for over seven hours, was presided by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo.
The essence of awarding the huge sum contracts, said the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, is to restore confidence in the construction sector which has suffered severe blow from the failure of especially the immediate past administration to pay construction firms.
Fashola said that contractors that had been owed have started returning to site while money is being spent on construction items. Critically, he said, jobs are created and the economy is bouncing back.
He said: “The headline figures are in the region of N126bn but I think that is not the story, the story really is what the award of those contracts will do to the economy. It will restore confidence to the construction industry.
“Contractors who have been owed for two three years before Mr President was elected are back in various states, they recall their workers and as they are purchasing gravel, cement, the economy is on its way back.
“Every place in all of those states once we mobilise the contractors the money is kept in those states. Most of the workers who drive the trucks, who fix the roads that you see are indigenes of those states and so they aggregate to the total output from each of those states to the national productivity and national recovery.”
With this development, no doubt, Nigeria’s economy is on its way to recover. The people will live a better life and the government will have less pressure and criticisms. The administration will be focused, imaginative and committed to solving the nation’s socio-economic and political problems.
There is no denying the fact that under the present climate, the government is under serious pressure from notably opposing politicians, and Nigerians, to deliver on its promises, at a time when the country is experiencing the sharpest drop in its revenues.
Thus, any action that can propel the economy out of its recession must be religiously carried out by the government and supported by Nigerians.
Luckily, construction work is one of such actions because of the volume of amounts involved. The construction sector employs many and ensures contracts and cash go around even at the remote level.
So, fire on Buhari, let the road contracts go around and Nigeria and Nigerians will be better for that.
I think it is also important to commend the President on the new draft National Health Policy approved by the Federal Executive Council, which the Minister of Health, Mr. Isaac Adewole said would reposition the health sector in the country.
Of course, the health sector is critical to revamping the nation’s economy because without healthy people, there cannot be healthy workers to work at the construction sites.
Happily, the federal government has now initiated a new health policy that would lead to achievement of significant progress in this regard.
