The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has pledged to provide an additional N1 trillion for road projects across Nigeria under the Federal Government’s road infrastructure and refreshment tax credit scheme.
This was made known on Thursday by the Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NNPC, Mele Kyari, during an inspection tour of the construction exercise ongoing at the Agbara-Badagry road project which is part of the 21 critical federal roads of over 1,804.6km which the state-owned oil company is funding.
Kyari said that the N1 trillion would be invested in road projects through the Federal Government road infrastructure tax credit scheme.
Kyari said, “We are very happy about the state of this road development. We are very happy with this intervention across the country not just in this place. We are doing 1,800km across the country. We are taking another set of over N1tn of investments in road infrastructure in the country.
“We believe that this tax credit system which Mr President has put in place is the game changer for our country.
“We believe that in the next 24 months, there will be massive change to the entire road network in this country and this is why the NNPC is your company and working for all of us.
“We think that it is the best way to intervene and bring up our infrastructure. We are adding another set of cash, we have not reached the final numbers, but I know it is over N1 trillion.’’
For the record: Recall that in October 2021, the Federal Government approved the reconstruction of the collapsed Lagos-Badagry expressway and 20 other federal roads by the newly incorporated Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Limited.
The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, who made the announcement, said the approval which was given at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, would see NNPC take over the reconstruction of 1,804.6 kilometres-long 21 federal roads in critical conditions across the 6 geopolitical zones of the country at a whopping sum of N621.2 billion.
The reconstruction of these roads is being executed via a strategic intervention under the Federal Government Road Infrastructure and Refreshment Tax Credit Scheme with 9 of the selected projects in North-central, 3 in North-east, 2 in North-west, 2 in South-east, 3 in South-south, and 2 in South-west.
The Road Infrastructure Tax Credit Scheme enables companies with high tax profiles to construct roads in a negotiated agreement with the federal government to provide the infrastructure instead of taxes.
