Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen on Wednesday said the Federal Government will expend N300 billion on three major road projects under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement.
He disclosed this when the Chairman and some members of the Board and Management of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) paid him a curtsey call, in his office.
According to him, the projects are Lagos-Ibadan expressway, 2nd Niger Bridge and Murtala Mohammed International Airport road in Lagos adding that when the three projects are completed, the economic activities of Nigerians will be greatly enhanced.
The Minister, further stated that about 180 projects across the country are competing for limited resources, thereby necessitating the decision of the Ministry to be the pioneer of the Public Private Partnership policy and that if the Ministry fails to embrace the policy, the desired result of Mr President’s Transformation Agenda on the sector would not be realised.
Onolememen stressed that by the time the projects embarked upon by the Ministry are completed, our critics would be proved wrong. The Minister however reiterated the Ministry’s commitment to the objective of the PPP model while promising to furnish the Commission with the required information that will be of more beneficiaries to Nigerians.
Speaking earlier, the Chairman, Governing Board of ICRC, Ken Nnamani, a former enate President admonished the exemplary leadership qualities of Onolememen saying “I would like to commend your visionary activities in the area of infrastructure development in Nigeria”
The Commission according to the Chairman throws its full weight behind the Ministry of Works on some key PPP pipeline projects which include the design, build, finance and operate model of the 2nd Niger Bridge, Finance of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and Rehabilitation and upgrade of Murtala Muhammed International Airport road, in Lagos.
The Chairman also said that the Commission has been championing the development of a Green Paper for the Federal Roads and Bridges Tolling Policy and implored the Minister to be decisive in pushing the document across to critical stakeholders for acceptability as well as seeking approval from the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
Nnamani, in his final submission laid down what the Commission’s expectation from the Ministry are: Continue to adequately fund project development activities, establishment of a Project Steering Committee (PSC) and Inter-ministerial Project Delivery Team (PDT), sharing of the work plan of all PPP Consultants work on all outstanding OBC’s with the aim of incorporating it in the Commission’s work plan.
The Commission also requested that a list of new PPP projects to be embarked upon by the Ministry in 2014 be submitted to them.
