State governors have asked the Federal Government to transfer control of some Federal roads in their states to them for rehabilitation.

They made the demand at the national economic council (NEC) meeting presided over by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo at the presidential villa in Abuja on Thursday.

Ebonyi State Governor, Dave Umahi, briefed State House correspondents at the end of the meeting.

What he said:

• The governors will rehabilitate the roads through investors and thereafter introduce toll on the roads.
• The Federal Government lacked the budget to fix the roads.
• Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola was also asked to regulate the weight of trucks plying the nation’s highways.

Umahi said, “The council was highly concerned about the failure of our roads. Even after fixing the roads, they would collapse within six months and we noted that overloading is one of the major factors.

“We have noticed that a lot of our trucks carrying majorly fuel do 45,60 or 70 tonnes and that’s a major concern to state governors.

“We said the Minister of Power, Works and Housing should come up with a strategy to regulate the weight of heavy trucks plying the roads which have been fingered as the root cause of road collapse.

“Lastly, the state governors are very much concerned about these failures, it has been agitating our minds and we are thinking about strategies and we are soliciting that the Federal Government give out some of the federal roads to states so that states can fix the roads through investors and toll the roads.

“We believe strongly that it will be more effective because the number of federal roads that is being handled by the Federal Government, there is no amount of budget that can fix it.”

Azeez