Fed Govt approves N310b to fix three roads

THREE critical roads – Ibadan-Ife-Ilesa Expressway, the roads linking the Second Niger Bridge to Asaba and Onitsha and Kano-Katsina Highway are included in the N310 billion road projects approved at yesterday’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting.

The projects were contained in three memos, Works and Housing Minister Babatunde Fashola told State House reporters at the end of FEC meeting chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa.

He spoke in the company of Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajuba and the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande.

According to him, FEC approved N79.82 billion for the Ibadan-Ilesa-Ife road, N200.176 billion for roads linking Second Niger Bridge to Asaba and Onitsha and N29.654 billion for Phase II of the Kano-Katsina Highway.

He said: “The Ministry of Works and Housing presented three memoranda and they were approved by the council: construction of Ibadan -Ilesa-Ife Dual Carriage Way, they are connected to Oyo and Osun State at the cost of N79.829 billion.

“Secondly, for the link-road that connects the second Niger Bridge to Asaba and Onitsha. The Asaba link-road was awarded to Julius Berger and the Onitsha link-road was awarded to RCC at the total cost of N200.176 billion.

“So, this completes essentially the access road that will link the bridge in the short time. You might recall that these roads were under-designed when the bridge was awarded.

“It is this administration that completed the design and we now awarded them so that you can have a bridge that has link-roads. This was awarded initially under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) and the bridge in 2010 administration.

“The third approval was for phase two of the Kano-Katsina High Way from the point known as Gidan-Mutum Daya, all the way to where Katsina Steel Rolling Mill is. This is a 78-kilometre stretch approved at the sum of N29.654 billion.

“That road is a 152KM road linking Kano and Katsina road from Kano. It was a single length highway until it was awarded in 2013 by the previous administration in phase 1.

“So, we inherited it and we have continued to execute it. The award was to then expand the road into a dual carriage highway way. That means we are constructing the existing one and building another new one. It was awarded for the first 70-kilometre plus for the Phase I, What we have now done is to complete the award to the same contractor so that there is a uniformity of construction,” he said

Nwajuba disclosed that contracts amounting to N1.83 billion were approved for his ministry under Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND).

The first, he said, is N915 million for construction of Faculty of Environment at the University of Abuja and the second contract of N918 million for the construction of Faculty of Education in the same institution.

He said: “The memorandum approved was in respect TETFUND intervention programme in respect of University of Abuja. A key component of that was the award of contract at the sum of N915 million for the construction of the faculty of environment.

“Another was also approved for the sum of N918 million to build the faculty of education. Those are the two components arising from the special intervention programme that was awarded in 2017. So, we have to act to give effect to them so that they can process the delivery.”