Senate on Tuesday resolved to detach the budget of the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) from the annual fiscal annual budget of the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing.
However, Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola (SAN), expressed some reservations on the implications of such moves by the lawmakers.
The Senate Committee on FERMA made the request known to the Minister and officials of the road maintenance agency during a budget session at the National Assembly.
The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Gershom Basset while speaking when the Minister appeared for the budget defence, said the Senate was desirous of having a separate envelope system for FERMA, independent of the ministry of works.
He said, “We have observed that FERMA is a semi independent agency. We are thinking of bringing out the budget of FERMA from the ministry’s envelope so the agency will deal with its own finance.
“We think it is a better way to go. So that we don’t have to be summoning the ministry each time we want to have engagement with FERMA.
“We want to know the criteria that you used to allocate funds from your ministry’s envelope to FERMA.
“We also want to know we can help your ministry and FERMA to be more efficient. We only want to remove the budgetary envelope and not the supervisory responsibilities of the agency.
“We want you to provide information on the two issues and send your responses to us.”
Fashola speaking on FERMA before the Senate Committee said, “I understand and align with the necessity and purpose of setting up parastatals. They are crucial for the implementation of government policies .
“I believe that in the process and speed to create FERMA, we left certain things behind. It is important to look at those things here.
“One of the things we left behind was the institutional capacities in the ministries. For instance in the old federal roads camps that we were using to provide assessment and maintenance for FERMA, we left the federal controllers of works out and they are still there in all the states.
“FERMA and other agencies under ministry’s supervision, will confirm that I don’t interfere with their affairs. That is to make sure that they act consistently with the policy of government to make the road good. FERMA is already independent but we should speak more to the Federal Ministry of Finance before FERMA is granted financial autonomy.
“Last year, FERMA had an unprecedented budget but it came from the chopping and chipping off our limbs in the ministry without reference to us.
“Invariably it amounted to cutting one’s nose to spite the face. The effect was that projects already completed in 2020 budget of the ministry, being moved to FERMA without consulting with us.
“The consequence was that contractors were owed for a whole year and their businesses were seriously dislocated.
“The reason I’m bringing this to your attention is that as we look for more resources for FERMA, we should resist the temptation to go and cloy in into what we have in the ministry of works.
“The agency that can tell us how FERMA can get more funds is the Ministry of Finance.”
