Federal government has approved a contract of about N1 trillion for the construction of the first phase of the coastal roads across Nigeria.
Minister of works, Dave Umahi, disclosed this to State House correspondents yesterday after the federal Executive council meeting presided over by President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa .
He said the phase is part of the 700-kilometre road which cuts across nine states and with two links leading to the northern states.
Umahi stated that the council approved the fund for the first phase made of 47.47 kilometres of dual carriageway of five lines on each side and a train track in the middle.
He also said that the project will be constructed with concrete.
“Today, we had the approval of FEC for the construction of 700 kilometres of coastal routes running from Lagos through the nine coastal routes or states up to cross the river, meaning that it goes to Lagos, the Lekki Deep Seaport, Ogun state, Ondo State, Delta, Bayelsa, Port Harcourt and Akwa Ibom.
“But we also have two spurs that lead to the north, from the ongoing Badagry-Sokoto route and the one that leads to the trans-Sahara route that goes from Ogoja down to Cameroon.
“Now, it is a dual carriageway. Each carriageway has five lanes and a provision for a train infrastructure that will be in the middle.
“The October 30, FEC had approved that this project be procured under EPC+ Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Financing.
so, in favour of High Tech Construction African Limited, which means that they were supposed to search for funding.
“They already have started searching for the funding, but hitches here are there. And so, the Ministry went back to Mr. President to ask for two things and that was on January 18. We asked if we could fast-track this.
“Since this project was going to be procured in two phases and multiple sections, can we get the federal government to fund phase one, which is 47.47 kilometres running from Ahmadu Bello in Lagos down to Lekki Deep Seaport? Mr. President graciously approved,” he said.
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