Afrigather 
The Minister of Works, David Umahi, has stated the federal government is establishing the Lagos-Calabar coastal freeway at a complete value of N4bn per kilometre and never the N8bn per km reportedly claimed by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
This means that the overall mission will likely be accomplished at the price of N2.8trn.
The minister additionally dismissed claims that the mission didn’t observe 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 extensively claimed.
Umahi disclosed this info 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 Get together within the 2023 basic election, Atiku Abubakar, questioned President Bola Tinubu administration’s choice to allegedly award the contract to Gilbert Chagoury’s Hitech with out aggressive bidding, daring the president to reveal the complete value 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 predicted 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 business as a result of commodity worth inflation and provide chain disruptions, the ministry is dedicated to prudence, promising to disclose the true value.
Nonetheless, within the interview, Umahi confirmed that the mission could 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 it’s important to now ask what was there to be constructed. And what was there to be constructed is the one accessible design from NDDC. They’d designed all the 700 km however we aren’t following precisely that sample or proper of approach. Now we have a unique modification. The unique design had two carriageways on both sides of the highway 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 highway we’re establishing has a complete of 10 lanes, you already know, not solely that it has a complete of 10 lanes, it even have what we referred to as shoulders. And the overall shoulders may be put at about 23 metres. So if you put the overall concrete pavement we’re doing, it’s about 59 metres. While you put the overall versatile pavement that he quoted it’s about 23 metres.
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“And so if you run the figures, you now discover out that underneath his calculation, it’s providing you with about over N19bn per kilometre. Now should you divide it by the 23 kilometres that they’re doing, it’s about 2.225 occasions a typical superhighway carriageway, which is N11.55bn. Whereas what we’re doing, should you divide it, you get N5.167bn, So if you now divide utilizing our 1.067, you get about N4bn/km. In case you return to what he has quoted, you’re going to get over N8bn. So utilizing concrete, which ought to be dearer due to the type of terrain we’ve got, and utilizing versatile pavement, which shouldn’t stand the coastal route, you will discover out that our value is N4bn as an alternative 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 presently used on the Abuja- Markurdi highway mission.
He stated, “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 type of association, as you have got on the Abuja to Makurdi highway 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 have 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 will likely be a negotiated counterpart funding of between 15 and 30 per cent
“After I was a governor, I had the African Improvement Financial institution fund a mission by counterpart funding and I used a few of the cash to construct some sections of the highway. So a part of what we’re establishing underneath sections one, two and three presently funded by the federal authorities will fall underneath the share counterpartfunding. After we finalise the negotiation, it is going to be between 15 per cent and 30 per cent.
Chatting with journalists, the minister additionally stated Hitech Building would fund the mission underneath the Public-Non-public Partnership mannequin.
Umahi stated, “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 partaking significantly 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 stated the establishing firm was solely invited by the ministry primarily based 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. As an illustration, 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. After all, we ran by the Bureau of Public Procurement and naturally additionally to the Federal Government Council. So it adopted due course of,” Umahi concluded.
