INFRACTRUCTURE.

 

TRANSPORTATION
•The Jonathan administration inaugurated the Lagos-Kano train service, which had been moribund for almost a decade. This is a major feat considering the long years of decay in the rail transportation sector.
•The Eastern rail line from Port Harcourt to Maiduguri is being rehabilitated as well as the fixing of the Zaria/Kaura Namoda rail route.
•The Abuja to Kaduna 187 kilometre rail line is about more than 30 per cent completed.
•the Ajaokuta-Warri Standard Gauge Rail line will be completed any time now. This will provide a less than four-hour journey between the Middlebelt and the South South.
•The Lagos-Ibadan new gauge rail line, which was also initiated last year is on course.
•The Federal Government has completed three feasibility studies and commissioned three others to open new railway corridors, which will be concessioned to local and foreign investors. An unprecedented investment of 200 billion dollars will flow into the Nigerian economy through these concessions in 2013 and 2014 with over 10 million new jobs of skilled and unskilled laborers (engineers, technicians, machinists, accountants) created in the next two years.

 

 

AVIATION
•The administration at the end of 2011 earmarked 22 airports for rehabilitation and reconstruction and by the end of October 2012, over 50 percent had been commissioned for public use with. The remaining eleven would be completed in 2013.
• In addition to remodeling, the Jonathan administration has approved the sum of N106 billion for the construction of five new airport terminals in Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt, Abuja and Enugu as well as six cargo terminals to be managed under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) Scheme.

 

 

ROADS

•A total of 651km of roads was paved in bituminous layers in 2012.
•A total of 32 Highway projects were completed in 2012.
•Following the recent effects of floods in some parts of the country, the administration intervened by constructing new bridges and re-instating washed out embankments.
•The Ministry of Works on the order of President Jonathan unveiled Operation Safe Passage, a programme aimed at recovering deplorable sections of major roads in the country to ameliorate the sufferings usually experienced by road users during festive seasons. Under this programme, key roads in the six geo-political zones of the country, were rehabilitated.
•80 projects prioritized in 2012 two have been completed, three are over 90 percent completed, five are over 80 percent completed, eighteen are between 50-79 percent complete while the rest are in different stages of completion.

•The radical intervention by the Subsidy Reinvestment Programme SURE-P in the road sector in 2012 resulted in accelerated work on the rehabilitation of the following projects:
Abuja-Abaji-Lokoja;
Benin-Ore-Sagamu dual carriageway;
Onitsha-Enugu-Port Harcourt dual carriageway;
Kaduna-Maiduguri dual carriageway;
East-West Road
The Second Niger Bridge for which a sum of five billion naira has been set aside.

These roads cover a distance of 1,664 kilometres and are at various stages of completion. Most of these projects are due for completion and commissioning in this year..
•As a major turnaround Federal Government also terminated the concessioning
agreement with Bi Courtney company on the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. The road rehabilitation work is currently been handled by two construction firms and will be completed this year.
•The Jonathan administration has entered into collaboration with multi-lateral agencies under the Road Sector Development Team (RSDT) scheme.
•Under this framework, the RSDT is currently implementing road rehabilitation, upgrading and maintenance, institutional strengthening and policy reform, and road safety improvements with the credit from the World Bank; and additional funding from the Africa Development Bank (AfDB).
•The RSDT in collaboration with multi-lateral agencies rehabilitated/ maintained a total of 257 kilometres of road length in 2012. Two projects under the scheme, the Mokwa-Bida Road and the Akure-Ilesha Road will have their contracts awarded in June.
•Also, the Ministry of Works is currently working out modalities for the execution of the dualisation of the Keffi-Lafia-Makurdi-Enugu (9th Mile) roads in Nasarawa, Benue and Enugu States with funds from the Export-Import Bank of China.

 

SURE-P PROJECTS
•In 2012 N9 billion was spent By the Subsidy Removal and Re-Investment Programme (SURE-P)on:
500 Primary Health Centres (PHC) across the 36 states and FCT of the Federation.
Employment and deployment of skilled Health Workers- Midwives, Community Health Workers (CHEWs), and Village Health Workers (VHWs).
Upgrading, Equipping and Supplying of Drugs to the 500 PHCs across the six geopolitical zones are being done.
Selection of 125 General Hospitals across the 36 states and the FCT. Equipping and upgrading their Maternity section to provide comprehensive intervention for complicated Maternal and Child cases from the PHCs is being done.
•4,604 jobs created for health workers in 2012.

 

WATER
•The Jonathan administration has remained committed to the UN resolution in July 2010 on the “Right to Water”, which formally acknowledged the right of every human being to water.
•Pursuant to this, in February this year it organized a Presidential Summit on water to seek more effective ways of preserving national water and make same available to Nigerians.
•To check the menace of flooding and prevent a repeat of the flood disaster experienced last year, the Federal Ministry of Water Resources recently released the 2013 Annual Flood Outlook for Nigeria
•The document evaluated the flood scenario in 2012 and analyzed the most likely areas to experience flood in 2013. It has also offered suggestions to all stakeholders and the general public on how to reduce the anticipated flooding as a result of expected increase in rainfall this year.
•The Jonathan administration has revitalized the 12 River Basin Development Authorities (RBDAs) nationwide.
•The RBDAs have helped in boosting food production through resuscitation of equipment, rehabilitation of production units such as processing of rice milling, palm oil, fisheries, palm oil, bottled water etc.
•The RBDAs have also helped in redistribution and redeployment of idle equipment, improvement of water management within basin catchment e.g. the Chad and Hadejia-Jamare basins, where the Ministry of Water Resources repaired the Challawa Gates for release of water downstream.
•Nine dams completed in 2012 and 125,000 jobs created in the process.
•Ten irrigation projects deployed in 2012 for crop production. Four other irrigation projects completed and ready for commissioning.
•Residents in125 Local governments sensitized via sanitation programme for attitudinal change.
•52,384 jobs created in 2012 four completed irrigation projects costing several billions of naira.

 

PENSION REFORMS
•Before the Jonathan administration came on board, the pension funds administration regime was one the major channels through which public funds running into hundreds of billions of Naira are misappropriated by corrupt officials.
•Problems associated with the pension management system include embezzlement, falsification of records, Ghost pensioners, obsolete administrative structure and denial of pensioners their due entitlements. This was what necessitated the setting up of the presidential pension Reform Task Team. The activities of this important task force resulted in the following:
•Detection and deletion of over 73,000 Ghost/Fake pensioners from the Head of Service/police pension office.
•Stoppage of a monthly theft of over N4 billion from the National treasury.
•Saving a monthly sum of over N1billion from the police monthly pension releases.
•Discovery of over 50,000 unpaid pensioners and immediate payment of their entitlement.
•Discovery of over N2.7billion fraud by the Nigeria Union of Pensioners.
•Seizure of about 200 properties including choice hotels and cash worth billions of Naira from corrupt public officials.
•Arrest and on-going prosecution of pension fraud suspects by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
•Introduction of a more efficient tamper-proof pension funds management system.

 

PORTS REFORMS
•Opportunities for bribery, documents forgery and other sharp-practices in the Nigerian ports have been substantially removed through a number of measures introduced by both the Ministries of Finance and that of Transport.
•A Presidential committee on ports reform and monitoring has worked assiduously to reduce congestion in our ports with the ultimate goal of a 48-hour goods clearing policy. The reforms in this sector are helping:
• To improve efficiency and transparency in ports operations and management.
•Reduce charges and promote competition.
•Facilitate the development of the transport sector.
•Eliminate ports congestion.
•Reduce government’s financial burden.