Nigeria needs N600 billion annually for roads – Minister of Works

Nigeria’s Minister of Works, Mike
Onolememen says the country needs about
N600 billion to build 14,000km of roads
annually if it is to meet the Vision 20:20:20
goals.
The Minister, who stated this during a one-
day public lecture organised by the
Association of Professional Women
Engineers in Abuja, said there was need to
increase the network of roads in the
country.
He said, “for Nigeria to move towards a
sustainable economy commensurate with
Vision 20:2020, there is the need to
increase the total road network from the
current 200,000km to 300,000km by 2020
and the paved network also needs to be
increased from the current 65,000km to
over 200,000km by the year 2020”.
Onolememen noted that the
situation would require the
construction or paving of an
average of 14,000km of roads every year at
the cost of N600 billion per year.
The point has been made several times
that Nigeria cannot overcome its road
infrastructure development challenges
unless necessary reforms are embarked
upon to reposition the road sector to meet
up up with the developed world.
“The Vision 20:2020 requires that Nigeria
attains a GDP of at least, 900 billion dollars
by the year 2020 and GDP per capital of at
least 4, 000 dollars; experience has shown
that there is a direct link between economic
growth, the size and condition of road
networks.
“Thus, for every one dollar spent on road
maintenance, there is a corresponding
increase in the nation’s GDP. The nexus
between road development and economic
growth made it imperative for the
improvement of road network in new ways”,
he stated.