CEM REPORT, TRANSPORTATION | Opening of the Second Niger Bridge may suffer some delay resulting from the flooding experienced in the construction area.
Flooding has destructed the construction of the link road to the bridge from the Asaba end of the bridge.
According to the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, the flood must first recede to enable the contractor complete the work.
He however noted that the bridge is expected to be open to the public before Christmas this year.
Fashola speaking at a press conference yesterday to highlight the achievements of the Buhari-led administration in the areas of works and housing, stated that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration has constructed and completed over 8,352.94 kilometres of roads and created no fewer than 339,955 jobs between 2016 and 2022
Fashola explained that the Buhari administration had devised several initiatives to draw down funds for the construction of critical road infrastructure in the country and end the suffering of Nigerians on certain roads that were notorious for being in bad shape.
He listed the initiatives to include the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF); the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund, Sukuk Fund; the Road Infrastructure Tax Credit Scheme, Multilateral loans/grants and collaboration with other government agencies such as the North East Development Commission.
He expressly mentioned that the PIDF assisted immensely in the construction of rehabilitation, construction and expansion of Lagos-Shagamu-Ibadan Dual Carriageway Section I (Lagos-Shagamu) in Lagos State; rehabilitation, construction and expansion of Lagos-Shagamu-Ibadan Dual Carriageway Section II: (Shagamu-Ibadan) in Oyo State; construction of main works, including associated infrastructure for the 2nd Niger Bridge, and the rehabilitation of Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano Dual Carriageway, Sections I, II & III.
“My presentation today – by going back to the change agenda, which we unfolded in the Ministry of Works and Housing in 2015 is part of the larger objective of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, to grow the economy through the revamping and expansion of the nation’s infrastructure on a scale that has not been seen in a long while.
“In these last seven and half years, the administration has been very resolute in the pursuit of progressivism, which is globally recognised as the improvement of the human condition.
“Indeed, the Ministry of Works and Housing is present in all the states of the federation either through a road, bridge, National Housing Programme, federal secretariat or Special Intervention Project.
“If in 2015, the complaint was the neglect or lack of life-defining infrastructure across the country and today these infrastructures are being completed or within the finish line.”
Fashola disclosed that as of December 2021, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) had released N183.1 billion under the road infrastructure tax scheme which was inaugurated last year.
In all, the minister said 8,424 persons had been employed under the initiative.
The minister added that the length of road covered during the period under review was 1,804 kilometres, with the southwest taking the lion’s share of N74.7 billion.
The North-central followed with N62.4 billion, South-south N37 billion while the North-east, North-west and South-east followed with N11.7 billion, N5.4 billion and N3.8 billion respectively.
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In the North-central, 1,283 were employed, 493 were employed in the northwest while in the southeast 616 persons were employed under the scheme. In the South-south, 1,964 were engaged while 974 were engaged in the South-west.
In the housing sector, the minister reported that the ministry has completed a total of 2,864 units in 35 states and the FCT and created 29,030 direct and 57,874 indirect jobs in the process.
He added that the ministry was undertaking no fewer than 6,022 housing units nationwide.
The minister further disclosed that he had signed no fewer than 6337 Certificates of Occupancy to Nigerians, who were granted federal lands and property but had not been issued with their titles for over three decades.
In that same area, the minister announced that a total of 2,731 allottees of landed property had been granted consent to transact business with their property attracting the sum of N2,210,577,837.95 to the federal purse.
Fashola explained that cumulatively, 339,955 jobs were created in the building sector over the past seven years.
