The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved N87 billion for the construction of a road linking Shehu Yar’adua Way with the Kubwa Expressway in the Federal Capital Territory, Oyo–Ogbomoso and the Loko – Oweto bridge.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Council meeting also approved N9billion variation for the reconstruction of Loko-Oweto bridge as well as the completion of Oyo to Ogbomosho highway road project.
The Ministers of the FCT, Muhammad Bello and Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, confirmed the approvals of the projects at the end of the Council meeting, which was presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari, at the State House, Abuja.
Bello said N30.6billion of the N84billion was approved for the construction of the road linking Shehu Musa Yar’adua Way with the Kubwa Expressway.
According to him, when completed, the road will also link Shehu Musa Yar’Adua way with Murtala Mohammed way and Mabushi district of the FCT.
He said: “During the FEC meeting of today, there was an approval of a contract for the full-scale development of arterial road which we call N-20, which is the road that is linking Shehu Musa Yar’Adua way, also called the northern park way, with the Murtala Mohammed way, popularly known as the Kubwa expressway.
“This project involves the full-scale construction of that road, including a number of bridges and the normal telecommunication, power and water lines in line with the general standard of roads in the FCT.
“It is a contract of N30, 686, 609, 000, with a completion period of 32 months and the project is within phase II of the federal capital city.”
The FCT Minister explained that the project would serve the adjourning districts of Mabushi, Kado, Katampe and Jahi as well as generally enhance overall decongestion of traffic in phases I, II, III and IV of the FCT development plan.
On his part, Fashola disclosed that the two memoranda presented by his ministry were also approved by the Council.
He said: “The first one related to the Oyo-Ogbomosho highway, which is the 52-kilometer part of the Ilorin – Ibadan 145-kilometer highway. The remaining part is the Oyo to Ogbomosho part which is 52 kilometers.
“We needed to adjust some things in the scope of work, the thickness of the pavement from 500mm to 560mm to also change the asphalt to polymer-modified bitumen and also the shoulders from surface dressing to fully asphalted inside and outside shoulder.
“So, all these required changes in prices of N47.504 billion and this has increased the total contract to N105.041billion. This was the revision that we presented which council approved. This road was awarded in 2010.
“The second similar project we are trying complete is the Loko-Oweto Bridge. That is the bridge across the River Benue that links Nasarawa and Benue states and provides a major time saving detour, about four hours, for people trying to come from south south, Benue, through to Nasarawa to Abuja.
“So, the approval given today was a N9.348 billion variation to complete the bridge component or remaining work on the bridge.
“If you go there now, it’s already opened to traffic, finishing and …work to link the existing road in the Benue side to the bridge is what we got this variation for.’’
The minister, therefore, announced that the contract price of the project was increased from N51.621 billion to N60.961 billion.
“As I said, even though we haven’t finished the road side on the Nasarawa side the commuters are already using the road because it provides a huge detour going through Lafia, Keffi to come to Nasarawa and to Abuja,’’ he added.(NAN)
