Why 184 Federal roads have been abandoned by contractors

Many Federal road construction are far from nearing completion as contractors handling over 184 projects have abandoned the various sites as a result of lack of funding from the Federal Government.

This lack of funding has amounted to the huge debt owed contractors by the Federal Ministry of Works.
Consequently, N1.76 trillion worth of federal road projects across the country have suffered major setback, Punch reports.

The abandoned road projects are situated across the six geo-political zones of the country.

184 projects were classified as ongoing by the Federal Government as at September 2014, but all of them have now been abandoned, the reports says.

The North-Central Zone had 29 projects with a total length of 1,201.81km and a cost of N294bn; North-East had 26 projects, 1,219.65km long and cost N314bn; North-West had 20 projects, 1,040.22km long and cost N188bn; while the South-East had 45 projects stretching 1,251.4km with a worth of N357bn.

The South-South had 33 ongoing projects, 739.57km long costing N245bn; while the number of ongoing projects in the South-West was put at 31, stretching 1,072.63km at a total cost of N365bn.

Contractors claimed they could no longer function as they were owed over N600bn, 80 per cent of which was to be paid by the Federal Government, while the rest are said to be owed by state and local governments.