The Senate Thursday set up an ad hoc committee to investigate the 11,886 abandoned mega projects by the federal government across the country since independent.
The committee is also saddled with the responsibility of recommending appropriate actions to be taken to reduce project abandonment in Nigeria and how most of the projects can be recovered.
Senate’s resolution were sequel to a motion sponsored to that effect by Senator Jimoh Ibrahim (APC Ondo South).
Senator Ibrahim in the motion titled: ‘Urgent Need to look into the 11, 886 Mega Projects abandoned by the Federal Government,” noted that in 2011, President Goodluck Jonathan set up a presidential committee on federal government- abandoned projects in Nigeria and the committee visited the 36 states and identified 11, 886 projects abandoned by the federal government since Nigeria’s independence in 1960.
He said reports have it that about 63% of the entire projects since independence were abandoned and even when a project is successfully delivered it usually comes with an overrun of about 40% while most delivered projects record 10% underperformance.
He added that the 63% of projects abandoned in Nigeria is worse than any country under comparison.
He specifically lamented that the value of the 38 projects investigated cost Nigeria over $40 billion, adding that what is now key to the investigation is the need to look inward at our infrastructural development as Foreign Direct Investment declined from $8.8billion in 2011 to $3.3 billion in 2019, and the current account balances in that year from $10.6 billion to 5-17 billion.
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