The Senate has called on the federal government to immediately declare a state of emergency on federal roads and improve its funding for their maintenance.
The call was sequel to a Motion on Nigeria’s bad roads and NUPENG’s impending nationwide strike sponsored during plenary by the Senator representing Cross River South, Gershom Bassey on Tuesday.
The upper legislative chamber urged the Federal Ministry of Finance to, as a matter of urgency, release adequate funds to the Federal Road Maintenance Agency, FERMA for the purpose of carrying out emergency repairs on all federal roads in the country.
It also urged the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing to immediately introduce weight bridges on relevant portions of all federal highways to check the overloading of trucks and tankers beyond the engineer’s load-bearing bearing capacity of such roads.