The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has
warned the opposition party not to downplay the indelible legacies of President
Major General Muhammadu Buhari’s (retd) administration in infrastructure and
its accompanying success.
This was as the minister blamed successive Peoples
Democratic Party administrations for the alarming poverty figures recently
released by the National Bureau of Statistics.
The minister while speaking during an interactive session
with journalists after an ember months Stakeholders meeting on the state of
Federal roads, on Thursday in Abuja, recalled that it was under a PDP-led
administration that public institutions such as the Petroleum Technology
Development Fund were used to launder money meant for Nigeria’s development to
service their selfish desires.
He stated that the incessant diversion of public funds by
the PDP laid the foundation for the level of poverty currently witnessed in the
country and alleged that NNPC funds were used to fund electioneering campaigns
and buy cars for friends.
He said “NNPC is now investing N651 billion in road
construction but that was the money some people used to fund electioneering
campaigns and provide cars for friends in the past.
“That was the cause of poverty; if they took away money that
would have been used to address issues in the country, that is the cause of
poverty.”
“Buhari has put back the money where it belongs. These are
things that are heading in the right direction.
“When there is a problem,
it takes time to design a solution and when you apply the solution it takes
time to get the final results. But ours is past the design stage because we are
already seeing the results.”
In addition, the former Lagos governor reminisced on how the
President early in the administration, went abroad to request the return of
stolen funds so as to fund critical infrastructures like the Second Niger
Bridge, the Abuja-Kano Road and the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway among others.
Stating that the Buhari administration “is on the right
track”, the minister asserted that Nigerians should commend the administration
for investing the nation’s resources for the benefit of the people.
“The other point I want to make is to say that no opposition
or adversary of this government can take the credit for our investment in
infrastructure away.
“When all other funding avenues fell, this government found
other funding sources.
“So, we now talk of the SUKUK; we are now talking about the
Road Infrastructure Tax Credit Scheme, we are now talking about the
Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund,” he concluded.
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