Contractors handling the rehabilitation of various road projects being financed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd under the Tax Credit Scheme has commenced work.
Recall that on 27th October 2021, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) gave the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) the approval to deploy some of its tax liabilities to 21 road projects across the six geo-political zones.
Babatunde Fashola, Minister of Works and Housing, briefed State House correspondents after a virtual FEC meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Wednesday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Mr Fashola said the NNPC tax deployment would not be a one-off payment but periodic and gave the projected commitment to the road projects as N621.2 billion.
The minister said the roads would cover a total distance of 1,804.6 kilometres.
He said there was an Executive Order 7, signed by President Muhammadu Buhari, allowing private sector operators to identify infrastructure such as roads for which they would deploy in advance the taxes that they should have paid.
To fast-track the execution of the project, the NNPC had on December 21 last year presented the symbolic cheque of N621bn to the ministry of works and housing for the construction of 21 selected roads across the country.
A breakdown of the project funding showed that the North-Central geo-political zone got the highest chunk of N244.87bn for the construction of 791.1 kilometres of roads.
The North-Central is made up Benue, Federal Capital Territory, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger, and Plateau State.
The South-South geo-political zone emerged the second highest beneficiary of the NNPC Road Infrastructure Development and Refurbishment project with the sum of N172.02bn for a total of 81.9 kilometres of road.
The zone is made up of Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross-River, Delta, Edo, and Rivers state.
The South-West followed with a total allocation of N81.87bn for the construction of 252.7 kilometres of roads.
The region is made up of Ekiti, Lagos, Osun, Ondo, Ogun, and Oyo State.
Similarly, the NNPC allocated the sum of N56.12bn to the North-East for the construction of 273.35 kilometres of roads under the scheme.
The states expected to be covered under this zones are Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba, and Yobe.
For the South-East geo-political zone, the sum of N43.28bn was earmarked for the construction/rehabilitation of 122 kilometres of road.
The zone is made up of five states and they are Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo.
Further breakdown of the NNPC schedule showed that the North-West geo-political zone which is made up of Kaduna, Katsina, Kano, Kebbi, Sokoto, Jigawa, and Zamfara got the least allocation.
The zone was allocated the sum of N23.05bn for the rehabilitation of 283.5 kilometres of road.
In a video made available to Swift Reporters on Monday, dualisation work has commenced on the Ibadan -Ilorin Section II, Oyo -Ogbomosho Section road project.
At the project site, it was observed that the contractor handling the project has commenced earth work such grading of the road, while the single pipe culvert has been completed.
Similarly, rehabilitation and expansion work has commenced on the Lagos-Badagry-Seme Border expressway where asphalt is being laid on the some section of the road, while other sections are being compacted by construction workers at the site.
Also, it was observed that concrete work on the culvert is also ongoing along the kilometre 18 of the expressway.
Similarly, contractors are also working on the rehabilitation of the Zaria-Funtua road and Ilorin – Jebba – Mokwa road
