Work will resume today on the Lagos – Ibadan expressway, as contractors gear up to move back to sites of various projects earlier abandoned by them nationwide as a result of the release of stimulus funds by the Government.
“Substantial releases” of a 350 billion naira ($1.8 billion) stimulus provided for in the budget will be made available, Udoma told reporters last week in Abuja, the capital.
In his presentation Thursday at the inaugural ‘Buharimeter’ Town Hall Meeting organised by the Centre for Democracy and Development in Abuja on President Buhari’s one year in Office, Babatunde Fashola, minister of Works, Power and Housing said the contractors had assured that they would go back to work on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
“And this is what has happened with our contractors; on the basis of our credibility we have asked them to go back to site. And this is what you will see in places like Ihiala and few other places that we are intervening,” the Minister said.
He added that in addition to meeting all the contractors, government has also identified the projects that have survived the budget and has approved them for funding and “in the next few days to weeks, disbursements will start for many of the roads.”
The stimulus will help to boost Africa’s largest economy that is struggling to cope with a slump in crude oil prices, the source of two-thirds of government revenue.
Fashola said the government has also decided now that it would build roads for a purpose, particularly roads that support Agriculture, adding that most of the rural roads that were designed as earth roads, would be changed.
“Now that we expect more yield from our Agricultural locations, roads that we built will become sustainable because they will have to deal with more tonnage from more wheat yield, more rice yield, and more cocoa yield,” Fashola said, adding that the Agriculture Minister has submitted to his Ministry six strategic areas that the Ministry must intervene in between now and 2017 if Government’s commitment to Agriculture must sail through.
On the Jebba-Mokwa-Ilorin Road, which he described as “very significant”, Fashola said the significance lies in the fact that farmers move their goods, their vegetables and the likes through the road, adding that what his Ministry has done in the last few months was to try to stabilise the road and a few others like it, which, according to him, have been confirmed.
“If you haven’t passed through that road, perhaps, you will not understand how significant it is for the prosperity of Nigeria because that is from where farmers mainly move their goods, trucks, vegetables and their cattle. And that is where fuel comes through from tank farms in Lagos to many parts of the North of Nigeria”, the Minister said.
Noting that the road used to take four days for trucks to pass through because about 100 kilometres had collapsed, Fashola explained, “Now on the basis of just our credibility, I stuck my neck out and told the contractor to please go back to the site; go and work. We have now stabilised that road.”
The Minister said although repair work has not finished, the road has been sufficiently stabilised and that section is now motorable while provision has now been made for some part of it in this year’s budget.
He pointed out that the present administration was running a Government of planning, adding, “It is not a one year show, it is a long-term project.”
PATRICK ATUANYA
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