Road Maintenance: Palliative measures don’t constitute policy!
In the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report for 2017-2018 Nigeria ranked 127th out of 137 countries surveyed in terms of road network quality. In addition to a marked absence of lane markings, signposts and traffic lights on most roads, the condition of the majority of roads is deplorable. Although Nigeria has the largest road […]
In the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report for 2017-2018 Nigeria ranked 127th out of 137 countries surveyed in terms of road network quality. In addition to a marked absence of lane markings, signposts and traffic lights on most roads, the condition of the majority of roads is deplorable.
Although Nigeria has the largest road network in West Africa, according to the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) only 14.9% is currently paved or tarred and even this percentage contains numerous pot holes and completely failed portions. Indeed some parts of Nigerian Express roads are so bad that in order to pass safely drivers have created entirely new roads in the bush around the failed portion!
The dilapidated road network is just one of many challenges which needs’ to be addressed by a government which is facing decaying infrastructure in virtually all areas. Although some people say the matter is urgent because they blame bad roads for the high accident mortality rate, in the view of the Honorable Minister for Works excessive speed and the poorly maintained vehicles are the main causes of deaths, not the poor condition of the roads per se.
The Minister’s claim that only 10% of deaths are caused by bad roads could be correct because the poor driving habits of Nigerians are legendary. Renowned for being “uniformly rushed and positively ruthless” when behind the steering wheel, poor driving by Nigerian drivers is hardly surprising when few drivers have received any sort of formal training or testing and acquiring a driving license requires more cash than driving know-how! Nonetheless whether or not bad roads are responsible for multiple deaths isn’t really the issue. It doesn’t remove from the fact that dilapidated roads create an environmental eyesore and cause increased vehicle maintenance costs.
The Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) was established as a subsidiary of the Federal Ministry of Works to supervise or carry out regular maintenance and repairs in a timely fashion. Similar to almost all other Federal Government Agencies FERMA habitually complains of being handicapped by non-release of budgeted funds.
They claim that routinely only about 50% of their capital budget is ever released. Added to this they can’t access over N64 Billion in road maintenance funds which were supposed to have come from a percentage of petroleum products sales revenue. Since 2007 the money had been “accruing somewhere”, and according to their Managing Director the Agency doesn’t have the capacity to find out exactly where! His appeal for full implementation of the FERMA Act which outlines where funds are supposed to come from must be attended to as a matter of urgency because the Agency has no internally generated revenue to fall back upon.
The excessive rains this year have adversely affected most of the already dilapidated Federal roads in Southern parts of the country. With FERMA in virtual limbo, State Governments are taking over the job. Under normal circumstances the news should be welcomed. Unfortunately State Governors explain that due to limited funds only “palliative measures” would be carried out. By dictionary definition palliative measures are actions taken with the intention of alleviating a problem without addressing the underlying causes.
When Governors proudly announce commencement of palliative measures or “patching” of roads, the full import appears to be lost on jubilating long-suffering citizens. This modern day reliance on haphazard palliative measures is a cause of, not a solution to, the lamentable condition of Nigerian roads. Most drivers will confirm that both on the highways and inside the towns it tends to be the same portions which continuously fail. For example on the Benin-Abuja Expressway the portion inside Ekpoma Township fails every year. Over the last ten years palliative measures have been carried out at least twice yearly and the locals’ joke that; “dem don take here make farm”! Implying that the authorities know better, but somebody somewhere is reaping a fortune from this annual “palliative” ritual. Surely it would make sense to actually repair the failed portion correctly once and for all?
It simply doesn’t make sense to keep implementing palliative measures on the same area. Given that palliative measures aren’t the solution and don’t address the underlying causes, the question arises as to how the situation became so bad and what can be done? Indisputably the absence of a national rail network means that too many heavy goods are being transported over long distances by road, and the disappearance of weighbridges has led to the bulk of goods vehicles being overloaded causing roads to deteriorate at a faster rate.
The failure to decongest Lagos Port and effectively utilize the nations other virtually defunct Ports concentrates heavy loads along particular roads. The consistently poor budgetary allocation to road maintenance and unbridled corruption in road contracts has yet to be addressed.
All these coupled with the Federal Government’s habitual deficit budgeting and over-bearing first-line charges which take up most of the realizable revenue, means that without financial restructuring the nation is unlikely to ever have the necessary funds to change the situation. On 25th January this year President Buhari signed the Executive Order 007 titled “Road Infrastructure Development and Refurbishment Investment Tax Credit Scheme”.
The idea is to enable the Federal Government leverage on private sector funding for road construction or refurbishment by facilitating private companies offsetting the cost of repairing roads against their tax liability. If things go as planned, the scheme may go a long way in alleviating the bad roads around few industrial areas. However it can’t represent a solution to the overall problem.
The importance of an effective transportation policy and good transportation network to any economy cannot be overemphasized. Palliative measures aren’t a policy government financial indiscipline must be curtailed in order to find funds for a proper effective national transportation policy to take off.