bandoned projects: Lawmaker wants FG to establish monitoring agency

In order to curtail the spate of abandoned government projects across the country, a Federal lawmaker has tasked the federal government to establish Project Monitoring and Implementation Agency.

Sani Muhammed Musa, Senator representing Niger East senatorial district, made the call on Thursday in an interview with journalists in his office in Abuja, after the Senate plenary.

The lawmaker had earlier moved a motion at the plenary, where the Senate resolved to investigate the abandoned Kagara Dam project in Niger state, abandoned for 27 years.

But addressing journalists in his office, Senator Musa explained that his motion was not only targeted at the completion of Kagara Dam but all other similar abandoned projects scattered in all the states of Nigeria.

He explained that his colleagues overwhelmingly supported his motion, not because it was moved by him, but due to the fact that they shared his sentiments on the wasteful abandonment of projects that would ordinarily impact on the wellbeing of Nigerians, if completed on schedule.

“The kind of support my colleagues gave my motion today is very good, not because I moved the motion, but because of the importance of such projects which are spread all over the country, so many places have similar projects that have been conceived many years back but have all gone moribund.

“The essence of this motion is not only to see to the completion of Kagara water project, but also to call on the federal government of Nigeria, to as a matter of urgency, take stock of all such projects that so much millions of naira have been expended and they are just lying waste”, the lawmaker said.

He regretted that, 27 years after the Dam which has the capacity of 100milion gallons of water per day was awarded and funds released, the project has remained a pipe dream despite the huge millions already expended on it.

Senator Musa said that Nigeria can only overcome food security if such projects like Kagara Dam, which will boost food production in the country, is made to function.

He lamented the spate of underdevelopment and how the country is currently being run, where sinking of boreholes have become the order of the day.

“This is 21st century, Nigeria has to move like other developed countries, we cannot continue to remain the way we are, boreholes are outdated. So we should move like others, we have all the required resources, the land mass, the population and other endowment,” Senator Musa added.

He therefore called on the federal government to create an agency whose sole responsibility will be to monitor the execution of all government contracts and projects across the country.