By SUNDAY ABBA, Abuja
Nigeria’s Minister of Works Sen. David Umahi has disclosed that the first phase of 47 kilometres (km) of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway will be completed in May 2025.
The Minister who dropped the hint while holding a meeting with directors of the ministry and some contractors on Tuesday in Abuja also dispelled the rumour that work had stopped on the project site.
He also disclosed that the federal government had so far disbursed a total sum of N10 billion as compensation to property owners affected by the demolition necessary for the construction of the Highway, adding that the ministry had reduced the project’s size from ten lanes to six as a cost-saving measure for the legacy project.
“Some people have been writing that we have stopped the project. No project is stopped. As we are talking now, over four kilometres of concrete road has been completed on six lanes.
“We had to establish a new path due to complaints made by MTN on its subsea cable and Okuaja community, we had to reroute not to the new alignment, not to the gazetted alignment but far away from the two, and we came back to a new alignment at kilometre 25.
“So the work is going and it is moving smoothly. We have paid the total compensation of close to N10 billion. we are not owing and the contractor is highly commended for a very beautiful job, commitment and being very reasonable.
“These projects are investments, and they have inherent returns. By May 29, 2025, we will have completed section one of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal highway.
“Apart from the land, we are going to acquire for tourism, factories and industries, when we tow the road within ten years, we would recover the cost of the money so it is an investment,” the Minister said.
Umahi, however, lamented that most contractors don’t have the required personnel and equipment to execute the job, hence they will resort to delay tactics to keep getting easy money from the ministry using the variation of price.
Hinting the contractors that variations in contract prices would no longer be entertained, especially when the project has not been reviewed, Umahi noted that “the government can’t keep giving out different prices for similar projects.”
The Minister said the new policies being introduced are necessitated by the current economic realities of the country, especially considering the paucity of fund and the plethora of demands from other sectors of the economy on the federal government which must be met also.
He warned that in as much as the government will do all its best in funding the projects amidst the fund crunch, any unnecessary delays by contractors in mobilising to site or executing project will not be acceptable.
The minister equally announced that the current administration inherited over 2,600 projects valued at N15 trillion, lamenting that funding was a big challenge, warning that going forward, any project that does not have funding will be reviewed but stepped down.
He said aside from the inherited projects and acute fund challenge, the current administration had initiated 330 emergency projects totalling N260bn, of which over 80 per cent of them had already been completed despite the poor appropriation that has been the case.
“We have 130 projects that Mr President approved on emergency basis totalling N260 billion. As at today, we have completed over 80 per cent of such projects,” he said.
According to the Minister, a lot of new projects are also being executed, especially the constituency projects which constitutes about 90 per cent of the projects being handled by the ministry.
The Minister also announced that work would resume on the Abuja – Kano Highway during the week following the amicable resolution of all outstanding issues between the ministry and Julius Berger who handles the project.