The House of Assembly in Niger has set up a nine-man ad hoc committee to investigate the delay in the construction and completion of Minna-Bida-Kataeregi road as well as other roads projects in the state.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports in Minna on Friday that the committee was set up when the state Commissioner for Works, Alhaji Mamman Musa, appeared before members of the state house of assembly to explain progress of work on the roads.
The house announced Muhammed Alhaji Haruna, member representing Bida 2 as the chairman of the committee while his other colleagues representing Katcha, Gbako, Wushishi, Agwara, Borgu, Bosso, Mokwa and Lavun to serve as members of the committee.
Responding, Haruna explained that his counterparts had done the right thing by setting up the ad hoc committee to investigate the ongoing road projects, particularly the Minna-Katayeregi-Bida road.
He assured the house that the committee would leave no stone unturned to see to the construction and completion of Minna-Katayeregi-Bida road.
Earlier, Musa explained that the state house of assembly had in 2019 given approval to the state government to access N25 billion loan from Islamic Development Bank to finance Minna-Kataeregi-Bida, Broadcasting, Paiko-Lapai, Immani junction roads and upgrade of Suleja General Hospital.
He said that the 86-km Minna-Kataeregi-Bida road project was rescoped from N25 billion to N17 billion for Dantata and Sawoe to handle the dual carriage way from zero to 15km as state government counterpart while Islamic Development Bank was expected to take over the construction of the remaining 71 kilometres.
“The initial plan was to construct only one lane, but we have to rescope the project to double lane because Islamic Development Bank does not give loan for one lane road,” he said.
Musa said that the loan agreement was that the state government would fund 15 kilometres part of the road starting from Kpakugun to Garatu while the Islamic Development Bank would fund the remaining 71 kilometres, adding that 35 per cent from the 15 kilometre had been completed at the sum of N11 billion.
He said that plans were underway between the Federal Ministry of Finance in collaboration with Islamic Development Bank for the possibility of starting the 71 kilometres with the loan to ensure the completion of the road before the expiration of tenure of the present administration.(NAN)
