The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, disclosed this while briefing journalists on the progress made in the power, works and housing sectors in the three years stewardship of the Buhari administration.
Of the N206 billion cost of 2nd Niger Bridge, the minister said about N31billion has been given to Julius Berger as advance, resulting in the significant record of erecting pillars on site, even as he assured that the project is expected to be completed in 36 months.
Fashola also gave statistics of road projects in the last three years, saying in 2016, 277 kilometres of road was constructed, 345km was rehabilitated and 17,749 people were employed in the process.
He said in 2017, the federal government constructed 488 roads, rehabilitated 256 others and engaged 31,227 persons.
For 2018, Fashola said 497km of the road had been constructed, 284 rehabilitated and 30,402 persons employed, adding that the figure could rise during December due to more rehabilitation projects nationwide.
Expatiating on this, the Permanent Secretary (Works and Housing), Mr Mohammed Bukar said there has been award of 365 roads for construction since 2001.
He said the Buhari government awarded 121 of these in three years, while the previous government awarded 144 others in 17 years.
“You will see that out of the 365 roads, 144 were awarded in the period of 17 years while in just three years, we awarded 121 roads and we are still counting because the 2018 procurement is on-going,” Bukar noted.
While briefing newsmen, Fashola stated that his ministry is poised to execute the second phase of the projects promised Nigerians at the inception of the present administration three years ago through the implementation of the 2018 budget.
He said,
“Our progress report on public works relating to roads and bridges also confirms that we have fulfilled our promise. We have recovered the thousands of jobs that were lost to public works.
“Difficult or abandoned projects like the 2nd Niger Bridge, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Bodo-Bonny Bridge have been brought back to life, while sections of Ilorin-Jebba, Sokoto to Jega, Sokoto-Ilela have been completed, even as works continue on others nationwide”.
According to him, the aforementioned interventions on roads which have been expanded beyond interstate highways to include abandoned internal roads of federal universities, presently 14, constitute the first phase under the 2017 budget.
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