FERMA partners NHITE to improve the quality of Nigerian roads.

By Matthew Denis, Abuja

The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Federal Road Maintenance Agency, Chukwuemeka Agbasi has stated the preparedness of the agency to partner the Nigeria Highway Institution and Transport Engineers, to improve the quality of Nigerian roads.

Agbasi who made this known during a courtesy call by NHITE leaders to his office, said that the agency will formerly sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Nigeria Highway Institution and Transport Engineers to cement their working relationship.

He said “we are glad to have NHITE Leaders here and you are part of us considering the fact that most of the people here are not new faces, so FERMA will participate fully in the two training programmes.

” We are trying to transform FERMA into a 21st century in terms of acquiring new knowledge and putting it into practice and improving in operations.

” we are also trying to benchmark our processes because where we are now and where we want to be and I believe that there is a lot of roles NHITE will play in trying to achieve these.

” Going forward I think it will be necessary for us to formalize our relationship not just having this training programme we want to have. We should have a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a clear goals and objectives where we are going to partner with NHITE.

” I’m seeing a scenario where we have an MoU with NHITE in terms of trainings, you can also advice us and advocacy work for us on how do we maintain our roads, what methods or approach is appropriate in road maintenance.

” I will also like to highlight at this point that the agency within our mandate is to maintain our roads and there about forty objectives that has been identified like Road conditions, budget because the money we have is not enough so we still need to look at alternatives ways of funding which is very germine for our survival.

The MD stressed that other issues is how to improve the working conditions whether they’re in tune with modern technologies or not.

He challenged the NHITE professionals to also tell them (FERMA) how they work whether they’re doing it right or improve on their work.

” In the Next four years we should have a target in spite of all the constraints we faced we should still have a target on where we are going which has to be data centric to monitor our performance yearly.

Earlier, the Chairman of Nigeria Highway Institution and Transport Engineers, Saidu Hassan stressed that they were there to congratulate him and work collaboratively with the agency.

He Said ” we want to appreciate your agency for the support during our last year workshop and also want to inform you that this year by June we’re going to have an international training workshop with Nigeria Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI) on pavement road designs, modern techniques. We are seeking for your agency participation in the workshop.

Hassan revealed that they will be having another training in September in terms of Bridges construction, supervision among others therefore they want FERMA’s full participation.