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From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The Federal Government said the Second Niger Bridge, which was billed for completion last month, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 lockdown and EndSARS protests, has attained 91 percent completion.
Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, made this disclosure, yesterday, during the Special Weekly briefing coordinated by the Presidential Communications Team at the State House Abuja.
According to him, 1,486 people have been directly employed for the Second Niger Bridge while another 8,110 indirect jobs have been created.
He puts the cost of three major PIDF projects at N1.3 trillion. The projects are Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano Expressway (375km): N797 billion, Second Niger Bridge (11.59km): N206 billion and Lagos-Ibadan Expressway (127km): N310 billion.
On when the projects will be completed, Fashola said that Lagos Ibadan Express Way and Second Niger Bridge are on course to be completed this year 2022, while the main Carriageway of Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano expressway is scheduled for completion by Q2 2023, adding that ancillary works will be completed later.
The minister warned motorists to shelve the temptation to exceed 100km/h on completed roads, to avoid crashes. He said the warning became necessary when he got messages from some of the road users commending the quality of work done, who said they were doing 150 100km/h due to the smoothness of the roads.
He also decried the sale of Premium Motor Spirit and other petroleum products on the roads, saying they deteriorate the roads faster.
Fashola also said the Mondays sit-at-home order issued by the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, (IPOB), is also impacting on the delivery of the Anambra end of the Second Niger Bridge.
He also said power outage for between seven to 10 days will happen on the Anambra side of the bridge to enable them reinstall transmission lines.
“On the Second Niger Bridge, we are going to shut down power supply from one of the power plants for maintenance, but that will provide us the opportunity to quickly replace all the transmission lines because we have built and raised the level which is now dangerously close to the Transmission Line so they have to reinstall them. So power outage will happen I think for a week to 10 days, we’re working with our partners in the ministry of power and also the Gencos to have this done. Again, these are challenges.”
On whether the Second Niger Bridge is a PPP arrangement, Fashola said, not yet.
It’s government money so far. NSIA is talking to some investors who want to bring money, they have not brought it. Invariably they will, or we expect that it will and invariably, we tend to then concession the assets for better management. But that is further down the line.”
On allegations that the second Niger Bridge was fully funded by the administration, the minister said: “Certainly not. It wasn’t fully funded by the previous administration. The answer to this lies in anybody just going to the 2015 budget. Go to the 2016 budget. Go to the 2017 budget. These are matters of public record. You will also see my statements where I was complaining that the only funding those budget were usually N2 billion, N5 billion and sometimes they will slash it. But part of the work has started, something tiny was being done for nothing near where the PIDF came in. It was when the PIDF came in, that JB now mobilise all of it resources, bring in dredgers order piles. So at that time, we will pile one and go. If you go back in the records, you will see that my first visit to this site, they had stopped work. Some of you covered me then in 2016, we received in their yard and no work was going on because there was no money.”
