Date: 2016-09-14

In the 2016 fiscal year alone, the Federal Government says it has spent N70 billion to fix Nigerian roads.

It said the amount was a significant improvement on the N18 billion the administration of the immediate past President Goodluck Jonathan spent on the sector in 2014.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who unveiled the figure to journalists in Kwara State on Tuesday, said that Nigerians will soon begin to enjoy the massive investment of the Muhammadu Buhari administration on infrastructure, agriculture and security.

Mohammed said: "In the whole of 2014 the government then expended about N18 billion on roads, but spent N65 billion on travels; this year alone, we have spent N70 billion on roads.

"People say these steps are not being felt immediately; it is because the last government refused to pay contractors between 2012 and 2015 even when crude was selling at $100 per barrel.

"Out of the N70 billion being owed Julius Berger, we have paid N14 billion. If government was not owing Julius Berger in the past and we paid N14 billion to them, you would have seen them busy on the roads," he said.

Mohammed spoke at his country home in Oro, Irepodun Local Government Area of Kwara State, during an interactive session with journalists.

He said that the prevailing economic situation was not about trading blames, pointing out that "those who understand knew that this recession was bound to happen in such circumstance."

The minister said that the crash in the global prices of oil exposed the country's defective economic policies, with oil accounting for over 60 per cent of its Growth Domestic Product (GDP).

Mohammed stated that the situation was compounded by inadequate reserve to cushion the effects of oil "misfortunes" on the country."We have a very defective economic structure, which depend­ed largely on a single platform of crude and fuel. Crude oil accounts for between eight and 12 per cent of our GDP and another 53 per cent of the GDP which we call non-oil, unfortunately also depend on the same oil.

"When the price of oil crashed in the international market, defi­nitely you are bound to have this kind of shock in the economy," he said. He decried the Nigerians' preference for imported goods to local products, saying that substantial amount of the country's foreign exchange earnings was being expended on the importation of goods and services.

Mohammed also blamed past administrations[ inability to achieve massive investment on infrastructure to assist manufacturing industries and boost food production for part of current problems.

According to him, such inadequacies were responsible for the socio-economic imbalance being experienced in the country today.

The minister, who acknowledged that there was growth in the nation's economy between 2010 and 2014, however, said that it was only fuelled by consumption. Mohammed disclosed that the administration inherited a whooping debt of N67 billion on fertiliser procurement alone.