Rotimi Amaechi, the Minister of Transportation, has proposed N205 billion as capital budget for 2021.

This, he said, was to enable the ministry make significant progress on all its ongoing projects.

Amaechi made this known in a statement to newsmen during on his presentation before the Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Representatives on Land and Marine Transport in Abuja.

He said that out of the N205 billion, land transport had about N204 million, marine transport had N845 million with an overhead cost of about N358 million for the year 2021.

“The total capital appropriation of the ministry for 2020 is N70 billion, land has N69.6 billion, marine N698 million.

“Out of this sum, N36 billion representing 51.49 per cent has been released to date with land having about N35 billion and marine with N90 million has been utilised as at Nov.2. 2020.

“In addition, the sum of N245 million was appropriated for overhead expenditure, out of which N177 million was released, the sum of N158 million of the released amount was expended as at Oct.28, 2020.

“The ministry is proposing a total capital budget of N205 billion with land transport estimates of N204 billion, marine transport estimates N845 million and overhead of N359 million in the 2021 budget, which is before you for consideration.

“The aims and objectives of these proposals are to make significant progress on all ongoing projects.

“And to complete and deliver modern railway services that will provide an efficient and cost effective alternative transport system for economic growth and job creation opportunities for the citizenry,” Amaechi said.

According to him, Nigerian Institute of Transport Technology (NITT) Zaria and Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) are fully funded from the national budget.

The minister said National Inland Water way Authority (NIWA), Maritime Academy and Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding (CRFFN) derived their funding from both the national budget and the Internally Generated Revenues (IGR).

However, he said that three of the agencies under the ministry, namely NPA, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC) were fully self-funding and made reasonable remittances to the consolidated revenue fund.

Meanwhile, he said the major role of the ministry in the marine transport sector was to oversee the monitoring of the implementation of government policies for the sub sector, which were largely carried out by the agencies.

Amaechi said that the budget proposal had presented amounts required for completion of some of the projects by 2021, while others might extend up to 2022.

According to him, the ministry was focused majorly on completing the ongoing National Freight Offices at Illela, Jibiya and Idiroko in addition to other land transport projects in 2021.

NAN