By Abdullahi M. Gulloma
Chairman of Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P), General Martins Luther Agwai (rtd), yesterday said that about N280 billion has been spent on critical infrastructure across the country.
Agwai, who briefed President Goodluck Jonathan on the progress of the programme since its inception in 2012, said the amount was expended on road, railway and health sectors.
He said the figure was out of its allocation of N360 billion, stressing that about N80 billion has been rolled over from the period under review.
He said: “Our policy this year is that we should have zero budget roll over by us.
“Sure-P has achieved a lot in this country. You just have to go out there and see the facts which are much close to us including the Abuja Lokoja road. If you know how that road was before we came in, in 2012 and you know how it is now, we hope that by the end of this year, we will now know how much we have done. If you go to the area of maternal health, we have been able to upgrade five hundred centers and we are working now on another 700 health Centres.
“We have sunk over 620 boreholes to give our mothers good health, good pipe born water and we are also providing health medications and mama kits for expectant mothers. From the reports we have had on the contributions of SURE P, Maternal Health Care (MCH), under SURE P, we have been able to reduce by almost 60 per cent the number of death due to child births. Now we have over half a million women giving birth under professionally organised midwives which was not the case in the past.”
Also speaking, a member of the board and immediate past Director-General of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), Mazi Sam Ohabunwa, said with the level of achievement recorded so far, the agency looked forward to a better performance as it settles down for real job, from this year.
He said: “It is important to know that in two years of our existence, we have spent less than N300 billion. Out of the N360 billion that was allocated to us, we rolled over N80 billion so we spent about N280 billion. That what we used to get the east-west road to where it is, the rail line running from Kano to Lagos, and all the works that have been done. So, you can imagine if the over N1 trillion that was spent on subsidy is released for this kind of work. Nigeria will get the best of services.”