The Federal Government on Monday in Ibadan reiterated its determination on the re-introduction and construction of toll gates on federal highways to guarantee their regular maintenance and sustainability.

The Minister of Works, Mr. Mike Onolemenmen, made the disclosure while talking to journalists yesterday in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

Onolemenmen who was on tour of North/South road from Lagos-Ibadan expressway linking Ibadan-Oyo-Ogbomoso-Ilorin road extending to Jebba, Mokwa, Kaduna, Kano and other Northern states stated that the only way the maintainace of the roads could be sustained is by introduction of toll gates collections.

He said the government is also ready to go ahead with its plan for the Public Private Partnership PPP policy of sustaining all the existing infrastructures nationwide.

The Minister who addressed journalists shortly after touring 52km Oyo-Ogbomoso road which is the section 2 of Ibadan-Ilorin road being handled by Reynolds Construction Company RCC and expected to be completed by December, 2013, said toll gates would be introduced on Lagos-Ibadan road as soon as the on-going reconstruction and expansion works are completed by both the RCC and Julius Berger.

He said the move to reintroduce toll gates on highways nationwide was basically to have funds to “sustain and maintain this road so that it would not go back to the sorry state we met it and similar others across the federation”.

The Minister of works declared that when the roads being inspected are fully completed, people can now drive freely from Lagos to the Northern part of Nigeria on dual carriage way.

while speaking on the termination of contract for Lagos-Ibadan road earlier concession-ed to Bi-Courtney Highway Construction Services, he said the company was not doing well on it as it failed to meet up with the financial involvement needed to fix the road in record time, adding that the government has the right to terminate it just as he drew inference from similar road projects that were terminated in India recently.

The site engineer of RCC, Mr. Yehoda Leve, who conducted the minister and his team round the Oyo-Ogbomoso section of the road, assured that the road would be delivered as scheduled.

Meanwhile, the 2013 budget of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC has been slashed by over N11.7 billion by the federal government.

In his reaction to the development, the Chairman of the Commission, Ibrahim Larmode said the action of the federal government will make it impossible for the anti graft agency to fully meet its personnel costs in 2013.

It would be recalled that the EFCC had proposed N21, 028,488,772 billion to fund its operations in 2013 but the Budget Office approved only N9, 328,159,022 billion - less than half of the commission's request to meet capital, personnel and overhead expenditure items for the 2013 fiscal year.

While defending the Commission's 2013 budget proposal before the House of Representatives Committee on Drugs, Narcotics and Financial Crimes yesterday Larmode told the committee that the federal government failed to release N25,000,000 million appropriated for the purchase of arms and ammunitions for the commission this year.

In their reaction to poor implementation of the 2012 budget by the Commission, members of the Jagaba Adams Jagaba-led House Committee queried “epileptic” releases by the finance ministry to the EFCC as evident in 15 per cent deficit in cash backed 2012 releases to the commission with a month left to the end of the fiscal year.

It would be recalled that the House of Representatives had threatened the Commission with zero budget for what it described as complacency on the part of management of the EFCC towards invitation by members of the committee.