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| Ministry of Works |
Vanguard News
The
Federal Government is undertaking various road projects worth N2.8 trillion
across the country, Mr Chukwunwike Uzo, the Director of Highways,
Planning and Development, Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, has
said.
Uzo
made this known in an interview with the Newsmen in Abuja on Sunday
He
said that the projects are being funded partly by proceeds of the Sukuk bond.
NAN
recalls that the Federal Government had in 2017 raised N100 billion from Sukuk
to fund 25 selected roads projects across the six geopolitical zones of the
country.
The
director explained that the government is financing ongoing road projects
outside the Sukuk amounting to N1.8 trillion while the actual cost of the
25 Sukuk funded roads projects was N1 trillion.
“The
total contract sum of all the 25 Sukuk funded road projects is about N1
trillion and this means that the N100 billion raised through Sukuk cannot
finish the projects.
“What
is happening now is that the Sukuk fund is being deployed to certain areas of
the 25 roads that have been identified.
“This
means that on a 100 kilometer road, for instance, it could be five or 10 km
that the Sukuk allocation for that specific project could address and not the
entire dualisation work.
“If
you add up N1.8 trillion costs of
other projects outside Sukuk, it will come up to N2.8 trillion projects being
undertaken by the ministry,” he said.
He
said N57 billion had been disbursed to contractors handling the Sukuk funded
road projects out of the N100 billion raised.
Uzo
said the outstanding N47 billion would be disbursed based on work done by the
contractors.
“The
money is there, if the contractors had completed their work, we would have
exhausted the N100 billion by now.”
The
director said the Sukuk fund, raised from the capital market had certain rules
guiding its disbursement.
He
said the fund had trustees who oversee its disbursement on behalf of the
investors and project monitoring consultants working for the trustees to
evaluate the quantum of work being done.
“For
each payment certificate, those project monitoring consultants have to jointly
go with the ministry supervising staff and the contractors to measure and agree
on the amount of work done.
“Then
quantify it in terms of monitoring certification before sending it to the
ministry and then to the Debt Management Office, so it is not like a normal
capital allocation from the Federation Account,” he added
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