Ogun Cleared to Fix, Toll Abeokuta-Ota Highway

A request by the Ogun State government to rebuild the Abeokuta-Ota Expressway has been approved by the Federal Government, Works Minister, Dave Umahi, said yesterday.

Umahi explained that no refund would be made to the state since it would recoup money spent through tolling.

He also announced that a coastal road to be built by the government across four states would be executed in two phases.

The minister stated these while briefing reporters after yesterday’s FEC meeting in Abuja.

Umahi said: “Today we presented a memo on an inherited scope of road infrastructure from the past administration and the total length of the roads we inherited and bridges were 18,897 kilometres.

“We also brought to the notice of FEC that a number of projects were awarded some lasting up to 20 years back, abandoned, ongoing with no proper funding. There are also some new critical roads totalling 12,000 kilometres and 24 bridges.

“FEC was also informed on the ongoing projects and to mitigate so much inflation and variation of the projects, to have some of the projects that have attended completion to be redesigned on concrete and going forward for new projects to be done on concrete.

“FEC approved that concept that most of the ongoing projects should be designed on concrete pavements depending on the level of completion and if you’re doing asphalt there are also conditions for that.

“FEC also approved the coastal road running from Phase One which will from Lagos to Port Harcourt to Calabar. Phase two will run from Sokoto to Ogoja. It was approved to be done on EBC + F, that is Engineering Procurement and Construction plus Financing.

“And eight roads that were started by the past administration for a concession that have gone through all the processes were also approved. The financial closure will be reached in the month of November.

“There were nine actually, but one was pulled out that is Lagos-Ota-Abeokuta and that has been given to the Ogun State government based on their request that they should do the road on their own and they will follow the HDMI, that is Hardware Development Management Initiative.

“No refunds for that, but they will do it and toll it. And new 25 roads were also approved for concession, which takes a very long time on the PPP model.

“Lastly, the PPP for Ijora Park in Lagos. It was approved that it should be done on PPP. And it was won by Beta Nigeria Ltd, which was actually started by the last administration.

“The consultancy for NNPC and FIRS who oversee the projects funded by them was also approved today.”