The Senate has rejected a motion to reintroduce toll gates
across roads nationwide.
It, however, charged the Federal Government to undertake
immediate rehabilitation and dualisation of major highways and interstate roads
across the country.
A motion by Senator Dino Melaye and co-sponsored by 90
others, had lamented that several trillions of naira had been spent on road
re-construction and rehabilitation in the country since the return to democracy
with minimal or no impact at all.
Senator Samuel Egwu (Ebonyi North) who supported the motion
said there was no better time to reconstruct all federal roads in the country
than now that Nigeria is working towards diversification of the economy.
Egwu noted that federal roads in the South East in particular
had been in bad shape since the civil war despite the contributions of those
from the region to the growth of the economy.
He said, “The roads in the South East, particularly in
Ebonyi State are death traps.
“Ebonyi State is one of the hubs of agriculture but the
roads are in bad shape and that has made movement of goods and services to
other parts of the country very difficult”.
The Senate, however, mandated its ad-hoc Committee on Works
to embark on audit of all road projects in Nigeria with a view to producing raw
data for further necessary legislative action.
The Senate reiterated the importance of good roads to boost
trade and commerce, as well as improvement in income of those in business.
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