Scrapping FERMA
•Road maintenance is too important to be corralled for constituency projects
By Editorial On Dec 9, 2021
The senate bill to scrap the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) and form a new one looks genuine on the surface. Lawmakers intend to ensure by that bill to give a roads maintenance parastatal independence of funding and management because of the roads that need repair and restoration across the country.
The bill, which is sponsored in the House of Representatives by Deputy Minority Leader Toby Okechukwu and Ossai Nicholas, and the senate by Yahaya Abubakar, will repeal The Federal Roads Maintenance Agency Act, The Federal Highways Act and The Control of Advertisement on Federal Highways Act.
What they seek to achieve is an agency that will facilitate the development, financing, management and improvement of roads. It will also regulate the issuance of contracts for road concessions as well as public/private partnerships.
It is a new approach to roads. Some of the complaints have been that the Federal Ministry of Finance does not release funds as frequently and in the plenitude that will make a difference in the maintenance of our road networks.
Some points need to be addressed as the lawmakers proceed with the action. What do they wish to achieve when they want to make it a public-private partnership? The question is pertinent because the accusation is alive that some of the lawmakers have seen FERMA as a vehicle for what is now known as constituency projects.
Many of them have been accused of two serious allegations. One, that a good deal of the contracts for FERMA go to the firms of lawmakers or firms fronting for lawmakers. Two, that most of the funds allotted to federal roads are misdirected to state roads, and even at that, some of the firms are owing for lack of diligence in execution.
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The consequence of these is that more roads are neglected, and the more they are neglected the greater the need for more contracts. It becomes a circuitous drama of incompetence, cynicism and corruption.
So, when they are calling for private participation, it is lofty in principle. But we need a system of oversight and accountability that will shut out lawmakers who are supposed to make laws from profiting corruptly from the venture.
Constituency projects have become a big bane of this democracy. Lawmakers now see themselves as executors of projects rather than enablers through legislation. Hence the suspicion that this new law may be innocent in principle but corrupt in execution. When money allocated to federal roads go to the work of state roads, it means we have turned the federal principle upside down. It has been the practice that state governments have taken over federal roads construction and maintenance and later asked for reimbursement. That has stopped with the Buhari administration. But lawmakers should not be seen to be doing the opposite.
With a new agency, the new head will pass through the National Assembly. We hope lawmakers will not hunt for "cooperating" managing director that will give a wink and a nod to "business as usual."
If the allegations are right, the lawmakers must watch out. The roads are often handed over to the maintenance agency after construction by the works ministry. It is then the problem of FERMA has been controversial. Because of the rise in population, the commuter numbers have risen. That necessitates the construction of more roads because activities inevitably increase. The Buhari administration has stepped up road construction on a relatively massive scale, and that will mean more work for maintenance.
That is why the lawmakers should ensure that what results from this bill meets the challenges ahead. It will save lives and connect parts of the country better.
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