From Uche Usim, Abuja
Nigeria’s quest to fill the poor road infrastructure gap has been boosted by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) earmarking N1.6 trillion for rehabilitation under the federal government’s tax credit scheme.
The country boasts of the largest road network in Africa, but unfortunately, only about 60,000km out of its estimated 195,000km road network is paved. Some of the roads are death traps as they have been perennially starved of routine maintenance.
So, as part of the Federal Government’s efforts to improve the condition of road infrastructure and transportation in the country, it introduced Executive Order 007 which was signed by President Muhammadu Buhari on January 25, 2019.
The instrument brought about the Road Infrastructure Development and Refurbishment Investment Tax Credit Scheme with the objective to unlock funding from the private sector for critical road infrastructure in the country.
Executive Order 007 was designed to empower private companies to finance the construction or refurbishment of federal roads designated as “Eligible Roads” under the scheme and recoup their investments through the deduction of the approved total costs expended on the project from their annual Companies Income Tax. The Road Infrastructure Scheme is a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) intervention that enables the Federal Government to leverage private sector capital and efficiency for the construction, and refurbishment of critical road infrastructure in key economic areas in Nigeria.