THE Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola has said Works sector would require N341bn for projects in 2018.

He said this on Thursday while defending the ministry’s 2018 budget before members of the House of Representatives Committee on Works, in Abuja.

Fashola said that out of N325.9bn earmarked as capital budget, the main ministry would gulp N288.3bn while parastatals will need N37.6bn.

According to Fashola, the budget for Federal Emergency Road Maintenance Agency is N25.6bn, Office of Secretary to Government of the Federation, N10.1bn and Federal School of Surveying, Oyo, N450m.

“Others are Council For the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), N548.5m, Regional Centre for Training in Aerospace Surveys (RECTAS), N301m and Surveyors Registration Council of Nigeria (SURCON), N489.6m,” Fashola said.

For overhead, he told the committee that the ministry earmarked N480.1m and N15.2m for its parastatals.

Fashola, however, said that the ministry would give priorities to projects of critical economic value to the country.

“These are highly trafficked routes used for the distribution of goods and services across the country and major river-crossing bridges,” he added.

Fashola blamed the untimely completion of projects on insufficient funding.

“The major factor militating against the timely completion of projects is insufficient budgetary provision and releases for projects to sustain annual cash-flow requirement levels.

“This underscores the need for diversifying the sources of funding for highway projects,” he said. – NAN

–  Jan. 26, 2018 @ 03:51 GMT