Scrapping of FERMA a welcome development – RTEAN boss

The scrapping of Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) by the Senate last week Thursday has been described as a welcome development by the Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN).

Speaking with Daily Times in his Abuja office, president of RTEAN, Alhaji Musa Shehu Isewele, said the scrapping has been long expected as such it is not a surprise decision.

He disclosed that the RTEAN has written several letters to FERMA about two years ago to notify the agency of its poor performance as their works are below the expectations of Nigerians particularly road users who are major stakeholders but no positive response was give to the letters.

According to him, “Those of them on the board of the Agency are not performing the duties that led to the establishment of the Agency in the first place. Their work is not of high quality that is why when they repair any road by patching the potholes, within a short distance future the whole place would become deplorable again.”

Alhaji Isewele maintained that when his association wrote FERMA to express their displeasure with the deplorable state of the roads that has exposed their members and other road users to avoidable accidents, all they receive in return was claim that “Our big trucks and trailers are the problems”.

He wondered how long FERMA should continue to give excuses to cover up their inadequacies and argued that if they do quality work, there were no way trucks and trailers would destroy them.

He called on the Senate not to allow the Federal Roads Authority (FRA) to become another FERMA from formation adding that its board should comprise individual professionals backed up by professionals from bodies like theirs.

The RTEAN president maintained that if their members are appointed on the board of the new body saddled with the responsibility to maintain Nigerian roads, there will be no room for quackery.

“If we are on the board of FRA we will resist poor maintenance because we are the users and since we are the ones on these roads regularly, we want the best because good roads save lives, put food on our table. So we will ensure the best is done when any repair is carried out.”

He added that the appointment should also consider those that have Nigerians at heart as road accidents due to deplorable roads claim many lives in the country year in year out. He regretted that the scrapped FERMA did not make any positive impact in the country.

Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola (SAN) last week advised the Senate against the move to scrap FERMA stating that the agency had become a brand which should not be altered.