By Daniel Tyokua
The Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, has said scarce resources would not affect the ongoing work on Lagos-Ibadan road project.
He said the Federal Government is keen on the completion of the work despite the scarce resources that stemmed from sharp drop in oil price.
The Lagos-Ibadan highway is a trunk A road located in the South-West region of the country and was contracted in two sections (I and II) to Messrs Julius Berger Nigeria Plc and Messrs Reymond Construction (RCC) Limited.
In a statement by Boade Akinola, the Director of press in the ministry, said the minister gave the assurance during an interactive town hall meeting with stakeholders at Ogere in Ogun State at the weekend.
Fashola explained that Section I of the project was the rehabilitation, reconstruction and expansion of Lagos-Ibadan dual carriageway of about 43.6km commencing from old-toll gate at Oregun/Ikosi-Ketu Lagos and terminates at Shagamu Interchange in Ogun State.
He also said that the Section ll which is about 84km starts from Sagamu Interchange to Ibadan and is being handled by RCC.
According to Fashola, the rehabilitation, construction and expansion of Lagos- Ibadan dual carriageway, construction of 2nd Niger bridge and the rehabilitation, construction and expansion of Abuja-Kaduna-Kano dual carriageway are strategic infrastructure development projects of Mr. President.
“These Highway projects are financed with the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) funded from the Sovereign Wealth Fund and they are National Priority Highway projects,” he said.
He said that the Ogere town hall meeting was the third, in a series, his Ministry has organized in order to address the critical conditions militating against the timely completion of the projects explaining that this goes to show that the Buhari administration is committed in bridging the road infrastructure gap of the nation in demonstrating an unfettered funding attention to road projects.
Responding to questions from stakeholders at the town hall meeting on the delay in completing the project and other issues bothering on safety of the road users which have become a major problem, he appealed to the contractors to accelerate work to ease traffic flow especially during the forthcoming Christmas Season.
He also called on the contractors to build signages and hazard warning signs.
