COREN Seeks Road Authority, Fund

Council for Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) has called for a review of Nigeria’s road development framework and the establishment of a road authority and road fund that would be saddled with the responsibilities of constructing, maintaining and rehabilitating roads in the country.

Mr. Felix Atume, registrar of the council, said the body is concerned about the state of infrastructure in the country, adding that Nigeria cannot experience any meaningful development without adequate infrastructure.

He observed that infrastructure drives the economy, while increased investment in infrastructure brings about increased investment in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of any country.

Atume pointed out that the modern trend in the development of infrastructure today is the Public Private Partnership (PPP), stressing that the council wants its members to know what it takes to drive PPP projects.

 “We need to know the PPP projects and what it takes to drive these projects because the projects would be implemented by engineering personnel. COREN promotes continuing professional development, we feel engineering personnel in the country must be conversant with modern trend across the world”. Atume stated

According to him, tolling of roads is quite critical to road concession, as the concessionaire will invest his money for a period of 25-30 years and needs to recoup his money through tolling.

Atume said  “That is the standard all over the world. The concessionaire needs to know the volume of traffic on a particular road for all the PPP projects on road; tollgates as a matter of priority must be installed immediately. However, before reintroducing the tollgates, we need to look into the institutional framework for road development in the country”.