The Minister of Works, David Umahi, has mentioned the federal government is developing the Lagos-Calabar coastal freeway at a complete price of N4bn per kilometre and never the N8bn per km reportedly claimed by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
This means that the overall mission shall be accomplished at the price of N2.8trn.
The minister additionally dismissed claims that the mission didn’t comply with the due procurement course of, stating that the contract was awarded on a counter-funding foundation and never on a Public-Non-public Partnership as broadly claimed.
Umahi disclosed this data when he appeared as a visitor on the Tv Continental Information Hour programme on Wednesday in Lagos.
Final week, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Social gathering within the 2023 common election, Atiku Abubakar, questioned President Bola Tinubu administration’s resolution to allegedly award the contract to Gilbert Chagoury’s Hitech with out aggressive bidding, daring the president to reveal the complete price of the Lagos-Calabar freeway mission.
He additionally puzzled why the Tinubu administration launched N1.06tn for the pilot part, or six per cent of the mission, which begins at Eko Atlantic and is anticipated to terminate on the Lekki Deep Sea Port.
However responding in an announcement on Tuesday, Umahi defined that regardless of the hovering prices of supplies within the building trade as a result of commodity value inflation and provide chain disruptions, the ministry is dedicated to prudence, promising to disclose the true price.
Nonetheless, within the interview, Umahi confirmed that the mission can be accomplished inside eight years, stating that with the usage of concrete pavement on the four-lane carriageway, the mission prices N4bn per km.
He additionally defined that though N1.06tn was appropriated, the complete quantity had not been disbursed.
The minister defined, “Persons are simply constructing castles with out information and so they don’t know figures, I’ll run the figures for you. We’re going to evaluate the cross-section of the one the previous vice chairman talked about that was renegotiated for $11.1bn for 700 km. So you need to now ask what was there to be constructed. And what was there to be constructed is the one out there design from NDDC. They’d designed the complete 700 km however we aren’t following precisely that sample or proper of approach. We now have a unique modification. The unique design had two carriageways on all sides of the street with 4 lanes.
“And within the center, they didn’t present for the practice observe. It’s simply going to be a water-collecting basin. However the coastal street we’re developing has a complete of 10 lanes, you realize, not solely that it has a complete of 10 lanes, it even have what we known as shoulders. And the overall shoulders will be put at about 23 metres. So once you put the overall concrete pavement we’re doing, it’s about 59 metres. Whenever you put the overall versatile pavement that he quoted it’s about 23 metres.
“And so once you run the figures, you now discover out that underneath his calculation, it’s supplying you with about over N19bn per kilometre. Now in case you divide it by the 23 kilometres that they’re doing, it’s about 2.225 instances a typical superhighway carriageway, which is N11.55bn. Whereas what we’re doing, in case you divide it, you get N5.167bn, So once you now divide utilizing our 1.067, you get about N4bn/km. For those who return to what he has quoted, you’ll get over N8bn. So utilizing concrete, which needs to be dearer due to the form of terrain we’ve got, and utilizing versatile pavement, which shouldn’t stand the coastal route, one can find out that our price is N4bn as a substitute of the N8bn claimed by the previous vice chairman.
On the mode of the development course of, the previous Ebonyi governor defined that the administration by no means envisaged the mission underneath a Non-public Public Partnership association however underneath an Engineering, Procurement, Building and Finance programme as at the moment used on the Abuja- Markurdi street mission.
He mentioned, “This administration by no means envisaged the mission underneath Non-public Public Partnership. It has all the time been underneath engineering, procurement, building and finance. And so underneath this sort of association, as you’ve got on the Abuja to Makurdi street mission, the federal authorities is required to pay a specific amount for counterpart funding. And so on this explicit mission of Abuja to Makurdi, which is being dealt with by China Harbour, the federal government is paying 50 per cent counterpart funding. Then you’ve got additionally from Makurdi to ninth Mile in Enugu state, the place we’re additionally paying 50 per cent counterpart funding. So, there’s a marked distinction between PPP and EPC plus F. And on this explicit mission, there shall be a negotiated counterpart funding of between 15 and 30 per cent
“After I was a governor, I had the African Growth Financial institution fund a mission by counterpart funding and I used among the cash to construct some sections of the street. So a part of what we’re developing underneath sections one, two and three at the moment funded by the federal authorities will fall underneath the share counterpartfunding. After we finalise the negotiation, will probably be between 15 per cent and 30 per cent.
However findings by our correspondent confirmed that the assertion is opposite to claims made by the minister on September 23, 2023, when he unveiled the design plan for the mission.
Talking to journalists, the minister additionally mentioned Hitech Building would fund the mission underneath the Public-Non-public Partnership mannequin.
Umahi mentioned, “Let me announce that this mission is underneath PPP. The Hitech group are going to search for the cash. They’ve already discovered the cash and that’s the excellent news as a result of we don’t waste our time speaking and holding conferences and losing assets.”
“We’re participating critically as a result of we’ve got seen the monetary capability and functionality of Hitech and this mission goes to be delivered in phases. Any part that we full, we are going to toll it after which enterprise and transportation will begin.”
Persevering with, the works minister mentioned the developing firm was solely invited by the ministry based mostly on their pedigree to assemble the roads, including that there was no public bidding course of for the mission.
“We adopted all procurement acts and the act permits the Federal Ministry of Works to ask an organization that has specialised talent in a selected work. For example, we’ve got some issues on the Third Mainland Bridge with some underwater works and whom did we invite? We invited Julius Berger as a result of they’ve the talent to the unique rights of theirs and we submitted a bid for it and we negotiated and awarded the job. In fact, we ran by the Bureau of Public Procurement and naturally additionally to the Federal Government Council. So it adopted due course of,” Umahi concluded.
