Babatunde Fashola (SAN) has blamed successive Peoples Democratic Party administrations for the alarming poverty figures recently released by the National Bureau of Statistics.
The Minister of Works and Housing recalled that it was under a PDP-led administration that public institutions such as the Petroleum Technology Development Fund was used as a conduit to siphon funds meant for Nigeria’s development to serve personal interests.
Fashola spoke to reporters after an ember months Stakeholders meeting on the state of Federal roads, in Abuja, yesterday.
He said the diversion of public funds during the years the opposition Peoples Democratic Party was in power, “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.”
The minister equally said, unlike in the past, “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.
“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.”
He noted that “If people who were saying it took them days to travel to a destination are now saying it takes them a few hours to make the same destination, it means we are heading in the right direction.
“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.”
Article updated 2 months ago. Content is written and modified by multiple authors.
