The Minister of Works, David Umahi, has admitted that the 750-kilometre Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway has no single engineering design protecting all the route, greater than two years after development started in March 2024.
Umahi made the disclosure throughout a one-hour-30-minute interview on Arise Television monitored by our correspondent on Friday, explaining that the undertaking was being designed and costed part by part.
The admission comes amid persistent questions over the freeway’s whole price, development course of, environmental approvals and the federal authorities’s capability to finish the undertaking, which is one in every of President Bola Tinubu’s flagship infrastructure initiatives.
“There is no single design of any road project that came out, you know, in reality, at the end of the project, the way it was designed,” Umahi stated.
Asked straight whether or not an engineering design lined all the freeway, the minister replied, “So these are the procedures. So there is no one single design that the 750 kilometres of Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway is holding. There’s no one single design.”
Umahi stated the freeway had been conceived way back to 1955, whereas the idea was gazetted in 2006. However, he maintained that he had not discovered an entire engineering design, subsoil investigation or different detailed technical paperwork protecting all the route within the ministry’s archives.
According to him, engineering designs are developed for particular person sections after environmental assessments and soil investigations set up the route, terrain and technical necessities.
He stated the procurement association accepted by the Federal Executive Council required the undertaking to be procured part by part, arguing that variations in terrain, bridges and engineering necessities made it inappropriate to calculate the general price by multiplying an estimated common price by 750 kilometres.
“Who fixed this N15tn that people are just, you know, brandishing everywhere? Who fixed it? And let me also clarify that nobody has the right to do an average cost and multiply by 750,” he stated.
The absence of a single engineering design and a complete undertaking price raises questions on how the federal government intends to ascertain the freeway’s whole monetary dedication, assess its total worth and talk its eventual price to Nigerians.
Defending the price of the primary part, Umahi stated an ordinary two-lane carriageway would price about $5.5 million (N7.3 billion) per kilometre, based mostly on his comparability with a coastal freeway undertaking in neighbouring Benin Republic.
He referred to a 47-kilometre part of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and a 47.47-kilometre coastal street in Benin Republic, which he stated price N1.06 trillion.
The minister cited a price of about N7.5 billion per kilometre for a three-carriageway configuration earlier than adjusting the estimate to mirror an ordinary two-lane carriageway. He put the adjusted price at roughly $5.5 million per kilometre, utilizing an change fee of N1,330 to the greenback.
He stated variations in street configurations and undertaking specs have to be thought of earlier than evaluating the prices of the 2 tasks.
On environmental approvals, Umahi confirmed that development started after the ministry obtained a provisional Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) certificates.
“Every project has provisional ESIA,” he stated, including that environmental points, resettlement and different related programmes have been being thought of throughout implementation.
He defined {that a} remaining certificates would comply with because the undertaking progressed and excellent necessities have been addressed. He additionally maintained that environmental assessments have been being carried out part by part moderately than by means of a single evaluation protecting all the route.
Umahi stated the ministry had obtained remaining environmental approval for the primary 47-kilometre part.
The freeway has attracted criticism over its price, route and environmental implications since development started. The federal authorities has defended it as a serious transport hall meant to enhance connectivity alongside Nigeria’s shoreline.
Umahi additionally clarified his remarks about a further 400 kilometres linked to the undertaking, following questions on whether or not President Tinubu had ordered a diversion from the unique route.
He stated the extra stretch concerned connecting the coastal freeway to the present East-West Road by means of Edo State, moderately than abandoning the unique alignment.
“The alignment is intact,” he stated, insisting that Edo remained a part of the route, which traverses Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Edo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Cross River states.
The minister acknowledged that describing the connection as a diversion was inaccurate, explaining that the plan was to supply a spur linking the coastal freeway to the East-West Road.
“It’s to also put a spur. The word divert, if I used that then it’s a slip of the tongue. We are talking about the connection of the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway, we are connecting it also to have a spur on the East-West Road,” Umahi stated.
He added that the connection would offer an alternate route and assist the reconstruction of the East-West Road, elements of which he stated had deteriorated and fallen beneath flood ranges.
Umahi stated design work on the connection was ongoing, stressing that it shouldn’t be confused with the unique 750-kilometre Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway.
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