Report by Mudasir Opeyemi
The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has said that the temporarily opened Second Niger Bridge will be tolled.
He said this model would be implemented to ensure the maintenance of the landmark project and to serve Nigerians for many years.
Fashola made this known on Wednesday when he appeared as a guest on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily.
The minister, who cited challenges including relocating transmission lines connecting the East to the West across the Niger River, said the delay in the completion of the project was due to the sit-at-home order by the Indigenous People of Biafra.
He, however, promised that the target date was to deliver a perfectly completed Second Niger Bridge in April or May 2023.
He said, “Inevitably, the bridge will be tolled but that is the job of the NSIA because we must make sure the bridge is properly maintained. So, this is where private sector capacity becomes useful. They may not be able to build capital to buy the asset but can mobilise the expertise and efficiency to operate it, of course not without due diligence being done. That is the same model on the Lekki toll gate.
The former Lagos State Governor added that the East-West Road will be shut down on January 15 to resume construction.
“The plan is to make the East-to-West crossing (accessible) so if you’re coming from Asaba, Ore, Benin going to the East and beyond and that started from the 15th. It will last till the 1st of January,” Fashola said
“It’s a one-way crossing, so that on the 2nd, we will reverse what we have done and allow people to use it from the 3rd. We need a day to change that and allow people to use it for the East-to-West crossing. Then on the 15th, we will shut it down again so that we can finish the 4km access road that we are actually trying to build and also complete the interchanges that are not completed.”
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“The purpose was to bring relief to Nigerians who transverse from East to West or from West to East of Nigeria across the river Niger and especially during the end of the year. We know that it is a logistics nightmare; we know that people will render services, go on holiday, wedding and festivities. The bridge itself is finished and the road linking it to Obosi road on the Anambra side is finished except for the interchange which is at different levels of completion.
“The road linking the bridge to Asaba side is one that we could not finish to make residents have a choice whether to use the old bridge or the new bridge. The president thought why not now, open it, let people have relief during this period.”
Speaking on the expected delivery date of the project, the minister disclosed that the target for the Federal Government was in the second quarter of 2023.
“Truth be told, the target date is somewhere in April, May. But these dates keep shifting and people must remember that on the Eastern side, our contractors have not been able to work on Mondays for almost two years, so that has affected the completion dates.
“If you lost 52 or almost 50 Mondays every year, you’ve lost 52 days of construction. Where do you make that up? We’ve also had some challenges that we had to overcome in terms of timelines. For example, we had to relocate all the transmission lines connecting the East to the West across that river.
“All of them had to be moved. So, again, we lost some days because the power company had to shut down; they had contracts to supply energy; they had contracts to take gas,” Fashola said.
Defending the four- to five-month turnaround timeline to deliver the East-West Road project, the minister explained that the terrain was a major factor.
“We’re building in marshland, so we have dredge, accumulate sand. If you go there now, you have to sandfill. When you reclaim land from the marsh, you have to wait for it to settle; you can’t start building the following day.
“In fact, the reason why that is even possible is that we are using a technology called Prefabricated Vertical Drains to accelerate the settlement and the drainage so that we can start building quicker than ordinarily if you left it.
“If you’re familiar with sand-filling in areas like Lagos, when you sand-fill, you can’t start building. You allow for settlement first and that takes anything between six to 18 months, depending on the nature of the terrain,”he said.
Speaking on the role of infrastructure in the nation’s development, the former Lagos governor said, “Infrastructure is one of the tools for development, for economic growth, creation of employment, distribution of wealth and tackling poverty, especially multi-dimensional poverty, because it speaks to the quality of life. Can you transact a business in one hour as against four hours? is another country able to do that in thirty minutes?
Fashola faulted some presidential candidates promising privatisation if they are given the mandate to lead the country.
Fashola said privatisation of most Federal Government-owned and -managed amenities cannot be an efficient model of governance.
He however criticized the Fashola, the effectiveness of the public-private partnerships (PPPs) deployed by previous administrations in delivering infrastructure projects.
“That was the model that we met and the model was not coming forth with the money, so when people also talk about this PPPs because I hear candidates saying they are going to privatise everything, give everything to the private sector you need to understand the global private sector, first of all, is largely MSMEs,”he said.
“You can’t give everything to them; they don’t even have the capacity. The micros employ roughly about 10 people, the medium less than 50, and the small less than 200. So, it can’t be a governance model to say you are going to give everything to the private sector. How large are they?”
The Federal Government’s investment in infrastructure projects, according to him, have earned President Muhammadu Buhari and his administration, by extension, commendation.
The minister attributed the government’s success to its decision to finance infrastructure by mobilisation of the nation’s resources, which he described as a departure from “nebulous PPPs” that were “ill-thought-out and delayed the execution of the projects.”
According to him, the government prioritises the repatriation of funds stolen by previous officials to fund its infrastructure projects.
“So, when people are talking about poverty today, remember that some people cause and contributed to it by taking money out of of our commonwealth and going to stash it abroad. We’ve brought some of that money; some are still coming in.
“Then our income dividends from NLNG – they said, ‘Dedicate it to these projects. Just keep going and we’re getting recoveries also from different areas but money is not enough to finish the project in terms of not having all the cash sitting. But every income that comes is dedicated to this project in terms of recoveries, our income dividends, and so on,”he said.
Speaking further,the minister disclosed some of the challenges he encountered upon assuming office in 2015.
He added that his proposal to Buhari to end the PPP approved.
“When I took office, I called them (private-sector partners) and I said, ‘There was this plan that you said you were going to mobilise. Is this plan still viable?’ And they said no, that they can’t raise the money. So, I wrote a memo to the President that ‘this is not going to work.’
“My recommendation was that every little penny you can gather, let’s use to start building. And if we start building, it derisks the project and at any time, if anybody feels willing and able to come and buy out government, we can hand it over. But let’s start building.
“And the President accepted the recommendation and after a few weeks, he asked his Chief of Staff to inform me that he has set up a Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF), which was monies now coming.
“The first tranche of money actually came from our dividend income from the NLNG.
“So, Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) pays and every other fund kept with NSIA, but they are all government funds. This is all government-funded, a hundred and one percent,”he stated