A total of 75 companies are bidding for 12 federal roads to be concession under the first phase of the Highway Development Management Initiative (HDMI).
Mrs Abimbola Asein, Head Public Private Partnership (PPP) Unit of the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, disclosed this at the opening of Request For Qualification (RFQ) bid on Tuesday in Abuja.
The HDMI was created by Federal Government to develop and manage the federal Road network through sustainable Private-Sector investment.
The 12 roads to be concession under the first phase of the HDMI are: Benin – Asaba, Abuja – Lokoja; Kaduna – Kano; Onitsha – Owerri – Aba; Sagamu – Benin; Abuja – Keffi – Akwanga; Lokoja – Benin; Enugu – Port Harcourt; Ilorin – Jebba; Lagos – Ota – Abeokuta; Lagos – Badagry; and Kano – Shuari – Potiskum – Damaturu.
The initiative is aimed at creating alternative sources of financing road development and management in the country while unlocking the massive economic potential of the project routes with attendant job creation. Asein said that the opening of the portal for the submission of application for the bid would ensure that credible concessionaires were selected for the development and management of the federal roads through sustainable private sector investment.
“It is a two stage procurement process, we have the RFQ; that is this phase now that we are opening the bid for. And then we have the Request For Procurement (RFP); the people that have been pre-qualified will now be open to bid for the 12 road corridors that have been identified.
“Seventy-five companies have been successful for pre-qualified so we are going to go through the documents that were submitted by those people.
“Then if they are successful, they go on to the next stage which is RFP stage,” Asein said.
She added that successful RFQ bidders would be contacted after which Bidders Conference would be held preparatory to the RFP.
The head of PPP noted that government came up with the HDMI to free up physical burden on government for competing priorities.
“So a lot is being done on the federal highways as we speak, so we need more to be done and in that we are inviting the private sector to participate in delivering good roads to Nigerians,” she said. Mr Babangida Husseini, Permanent Secretary in the ministry, in his address, said federal government was committed to a transparent, fair and competitive bidding process throughout the HDMI Project Life Circle.