The Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS has said it is set to perfect the design for Abidjan-Lagos Highway Development Project for implementation.
The Commission disclosed this in Lagos yesterday, at the opening ceremony of the ongoing three-day workshop it organised to meet the relevant stakeholders for the necessary validation.
Head of Roads and Railyway at ECOWAS Commission, Mr Ashoke Maliki, said: “Today’s event is important because
member states comprising of Nigeria, Benin Republic, Togo, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire are here to look at the report presented by the consultant, validate it based on their experiences along the corridor and approve such report for investment.”
He noted that, “The Lagos-Abidjan corridor is very important corridor when it comes to African Continental Free Trade Area initiative,” Maliki said.
Also, Chairman of Expert Committee, for the project, Engr. Ebere Izunobi, said the project which is about 1028km would elevate lives of people along the corridor.
Izunobi who is from the Federal Ministry of Works, said: “We are at the design stage and part of the components of the stage is the spatial development initiative, SDI, which is to agglomerate all the projects concerning individual companies, socio-economic activities along the corridor that is going to feed into the road and make it functional.
“By the end of this year, we would have been done with the design which includes Environmental Assessment ESIA, engineering design, project scoping and tender document, should have been concluded by the end of the year.
By next year, we intend to package the procurement of the main road construction, then construction follows after,” Izunobi said.
He emphasized that, “Roads are always meaningful if projects are linked to it and if it helps businesses to develop, that is why the ECOWAS Commission who is coordinating the project on behalf of the the member countries have decided to get a consultant to look at that SDI and estimate all the projects and its impact to the communities and improve the implementation.
Credit: Vanguard