2021: Amaechi seeks approval for N205bn transport capital projects

The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has presented a capital budget of N205,161,882,492 for 2021 to a Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Representatives on Land and Marine Transport.

According to him, land transport will have N204bn while marine transport has a total of N845m with an overhead cost of N358m.

He made the presentation of the proposed appropriation on Friday in Abuja.

The minister said, “The total capital appropriation of the ministry for 2020 is N70,365,081,808; land has N69,667,177,564; marine N697,904,244, out of which N36,018,702,122, representing 51.49 per cent, has been released to date with Land having N35,928,905,544.77 and Marine with N89,796,577.50 has been utilized as of November 2, 2020.”

A statement made available to journalists by the Special Assistant to the Minister on Media, Mrs Taiye Elebiyo-Edeni, said, “The sum of N245,494,182.42 was appropriated for overhead expenditure out of which N176,926,909.26 was released; the sum of N157,956,153.18 of the released amount was expended as at Oct 28, 2020.

“The ministry is proposing a total capital budget of N205,161,882,492 with Land transport estimates is N204,316,793,527, marine transport estimates N845,088,965 with the overhead of N358,799,999 in the 2021 budget which is before you for consideration.

“The aims and objectives of these proposals are to make significant progress on all ongoing projects and to complete and deliver modern railway services that would provide an efficient and cost-effective alternative transport system for economic growth and creation of job opportunities for the citizenry.”

 

Amaechi noted that the Nigerian Institute of Transport Technology (NITT), Zaria and Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) are fully funded from the national budget while National Inland Waterways Authority, Maritime Academy of Nigeria and Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) derive their funding from both the national budget as well as the Internally Generated Revenues (IGR).

The minister stated however that three of the agencies under the ministry, the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) are fully self-funding and make reasonable remittances to the consolidated revenue fund.

He said that the major role of the ministry in the marine transport sector was to oversee the monitoring of the implementation of government policies for the subsector, largely carried out by the agencies.