The Senate has rejected a motion to reintroduce toll gates across roads nationwide.

It, however, charged the Federal Government to undertake immediate rehabilitation and dualisation of major highways and interstate roads across the country.

A motion by Senator Dino Melaye and co-sponsored by 90 others, had lamented that several trillions of naira had been spent on road re-construction and rehabilitation in the country since the return to democracy with minimal or no impact at all.

Senator Samuel Egwu (Ebonyi North) who supported the motion said there was no better time to reconstruct all federal roads in the country than now that Nigeria is working towards diversification of the economy.

Egwu noted that federal roads in the South East in particular had been in bad shape since the civil war despite the contributions of those from the region to the growth of the economy.

He said, “The roads in the South East, particularly in Ebonyi State are death traps.

“Ebonyi State is one of the hubs of agriculture but the roads are in bad shape and that has made movement of goods and services to other parts of the country very difficult”.

The Senate, however, mandated its ad-hoc Committee on Works to embark on audit of all road projects in Nigeria with a view to producing raw data for further necessary legislative action.

The Senate reiterated the importance of good roads to boost trade and commerce, as well as improvement in income of those in business.
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