By Raphael Onyekachukwu
Enugu State House of Assembly Thursday called the Federal Government to re-imburse the Enugu State Government the twenty-five billion, nine hundred and thirty million, three and fifty-two thousand, nine hundred and eighty-five Naira eighty kobo, N25,930,352,985.80 for the rehabilitation of “Federal Roads of Economic Importance” in the state.
Members of the House made the call at the plenary session through a motion brought by the member representing Nsukka East, Hon. Chinedu Nwamba.
Hon. Nwamba, in the motion No. HM/01/2016, supported by eighteen other house members pointed out that in line with the campaign for maintenance structure which the Federal Government launched some years back, the state government under the previous administration embarked on rehabilitation of some federal roads and pleaded that the state should be re-imburse to enable it fund other development needs.
Nwamba also pointed out that the request for the re-imbursement was made two years ago and lamented that up till this day, the Federal Government is yet to honour their own part of the bargain.
Some of the roads rehabilitated include New Market Roundabout to Agu Abor interchange; Enugu-Abakaliki Dual Carriageway; 9th Mile-Ngwo-Milken-New Market Road among other roads.
Nwamba while making case for the re-imbursement said that the request is not out of place, “because such exercise has taken place in some other states in Nigeria,” and cited Anambra and Gombe as states that had thus been re-imbursed.
In his contribution to the motion, the House Committee chairman on Information, Hon. Paul Nnajiofor asked the Federal Government to honour their own part of the bargain and begged President Buhari to” pay today or tomorrow.”
Speaker of the House, Hon. Edward Ubosi thanked the members for their contributions to the motion and pointed out that, ” the state needs the money as quickly as possible.”
