N800bn can’t fix Nigeria’s bad roads – Umahi

The Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, has described the N800bn allocated to the ministry in the 2025 budget proposal as inadequate to fix the country’s road infrastructural needs.

Umahi, a two-time governor of Ebonyi State, disclosed this on Friday at a 2025 budget defence session, hosted by the House Committee on Works.

He called on the committee to consider reviewing the ministry’s budgetary allocation in the 2025 fiscal year upward.

“We plead with you to help us. N800bn cannot do anything for us. It cannot address our road needs and so we plead with you to help us,” Umahi said.

He urged the committee to give the ministry adequate funding to enable it to complete ongoing projects as well as commence work on new projects spread across the country.

Umahi added that the number of road projects the ministry intended to fix couldn’t be funded from the ‘meagre budget envelope,’ stressing that borrowing money to fix the country’s infrastructural needs for the greatness of the nation was a step in the right direction.

“When the nation is in recession, you have to borrow money and do infrastructure. That is how you come out of a recession. It is the infrastructure that is going to be a catalyst for economic activities and then this hunger we are talking about will be a thing of the past. The food sellers will be there, those doing sharp sand, those doing gravel and so on. Support Mr President and let’s borrow money and do this infrastructure so that Nigeria will be great again,” Umahi said.

The chairman of the committee, Akin Alabi, promised to summon the Minister of Finance, and the Head of the Budget Office to explain the rationale behind the low budget of the ministry.