Story from Sunday OGWUCHE, Abuja
Minister of Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola has lamented and condemned the rising wave of vandalisation of government-provided infrastructure, urging those involved in the act in the country to desist from doing so forthwith.
The Minister made this known during his presentation at the Townhall meeting tagged ‘Protecting Public Infrastructure’ organised by the Federal Ministry of Information, which took place Monday in Abuja.
According to a statement signed by the Ministry’s Director, Press and Public Relations, Boade Akinola, Fashola noted that no nation grows beyond the capacity of its infrastructure and lamented the level of damage already done to public properties in the nation.
The Minister said, “our ability to grow, to develop and to prosper, to get an education and essentially, to live a good life is tied to quality and quantity of infrastructure that we have, explaining that properties damaged under the purview of his Ministry included bridges across the nation such as Otedola and Kara bridges in Lagos, Tamburawa Bridge in Kano among others which would respectively cost 203 million, 605 million and 1.8 billion naira to repair”.
Noting that these monies could have been expended on other sectors such as health, education etc., Fashola disclosed that another form in which the bridge was abused included the conversion of spaces under the bridge to shops and the use of parking spaces for businesses, adding that the Ministry had started the process of recovery of all these spaces with the aim of ensuring that they are utilized for their legitimate purposes.
The Minister also condemned the vandalism of signages on the federal highways across the country. He explained that “Signages have begun to reappear on the nation’s highways but these signages have become targets of some people and turned to billboards for a campaign.” He added that some of them were outrightly carted away.
Fashola further condemned the abuse of the right of way by some people who raise structure on them, explaining that 45.72 metre from the centre line of both sides of the road lies within the right of way.
The Minister also decried the building of bumps on federal highways which he noted are dangerous to unsuspecting road users, adding that the public buildings are also not left out by vandals.
The Minister noted that though there are existing laws to punish these criminal acts, they were no longer realistic in view of the economic changes that have taken place since the time they were enacted and now, and therefore called for a quick amendment of the laws so that offenders could be adequately punished.
In his welcome address, Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Muhammed said the aim of the Townhall meeting was to bridge the gap between the Government and the people.
The Minister said infrastructure deficit was one of the challenges facing the country, adding that the current administration had invested hugely in it despite the lean resources available to it.
“Despite a drastic drop in revenues and competing priorities especially that of tackling insecurity, the federal government had invested heavily in providing new infrastructure in addition to reconstruction and rehabilitating of existing ones.”
However, he lamented that in recent times such laudable efforts of the government were being thwarted by some unpatriotic citizens through wanton destruction of critical infrastructure thereby depriving the greater citizenry for whose benefits these projects and services are provided.
The Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika; Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi; and the Federal Capital Territory Minister, Muhammed Bello also took turns to reveal the negative impacts and cost of vandalism and destruction of public properties under the purview of their respective ministries.
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