Govt to spend N300b on Lagos-Ibadan, airport roads, others

THE Federal Government is to spend about N300 billion on the development of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the 2nd Niger Bridge and the approach road to the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Lagos.

  The funding for the three critical infrastructure projects is being sourced from
the private sector.
  Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen, disclosed this when the Chairman of the Board of Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), and the former Senate President, Senator Ken Nnamani, paid him a courtesy visit.
  Onolememen, who said the Federal Government would launched the reconstruction of the approach road to the MMIA in Lagos and the construction of the 2nd Niger Bridge in the first quarter of 2014, noted that government had successfully launched the reconstruction of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway.
  “Considering the infrastructure gap, government alone, considering the scarce resources and competing needs, cannot fully fund the infrastructures needed for economic growth in the country. We are bringing resources from the private sector to the tune of about N300 billion to these three road infrastructure development projects,” he said.
  According to the minister, “the reality in our nation today clearly shows that without the mechanism of PPP, Nigerians cannot enjoy good road infrastructure. There is a huge infrastructure gap in the country today, that gap is an opportunity for private investors to tap into. Therefore, PPP is the way to go especially for a developing country like Nigeria where about 14,000km of road is expected to be done every year in the next five years if we are to meet what is required to adequately drive our economic activities. Without the instrumentality of PPP, we will not get there.
  “Considering the budget of the ministry, it may not be possible because we have about 180 projects struggling to get little from about N100 billion that is available to the ministry. One of the advantages of PPP is that it helps in the timely completion of projects”.
  Earlier, Nnamani observed that the national budget cannot sustain all that is required to bridge the infrastructural deficit in the country without relying on the Public Private Partnership arrangement, adding that the idea of being one of the top 20 economies by 2020 can only be realized if we get the equation right.
  Nnamani stated that ICRC has been championing the development of a Green Paper for the Roads and Bridges Tolling Policy and appealed to the minister to give it a decisive push to get the document accepted by critical stakeholders and also approved by the Federal Executive Council.
  He pointed out that the objective of the ICRC is to make PPP a procurement option that would compliment the transformation programme of the current administration. Nnamani added that the commission would work with the ministry to turn the key PPP pipeline projects into a reality like the Design, Build, Finance and Operate of the 2nd Niger Bridge, financing of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway and the rehabilitation and upgrade of the MMIA road in Lagos.
  The Board Chairman urged the minister to in view of the dwindling budgetary funding, revisit the proposal to rebuild and manage other key federal roads across the country through PPP.
  He listed other expectations from the ministry to include: Establishment of a Project Steering Committee (PSC) and Inter-Ministerial Project Delivery Teams (PDT) for the 2nd Niger Bridge, Lagos-Ibadan expressway and MMIA road for effective project management, share the work plan of all PPP consultants work on all outstanding OBCs with the commission to enable the commission incorporate them in their yearly plan and urgently submit to the commission a list of new PPP projects the ministry wishes to embark upon in 2014 to enable ICRC fulfill the legal provisions in the Act with requires the commission to obtain and publish such projects along with other projects from other MDA’s as a national PPP pipeline