The projects are in
The meeting presided over by President
Special adviser to the President on Media and Publicity,
"For
"There is also the expansion of
"Council also approved the expansion of
According to the minister, the approved contract is in relation to the section from Oku Iboku Power Plant to
"
"Council approved the award to
"So, this will help complete the dualization gaps between the one awarded to
"When this is done, motorists in that area will now have an option of the dual carriageway instead of the existing single carriageway.
"And this is in recognition of the heavy cargo that passes through that area from the South-South through to the North Central, Benue through Katsina Ala through to the South East to Abia. It's very very important trade link for the country."
Asked to give an update on the 2020 contract award for the same project,
He said: "Okay, first of all, it's important for us to have a common understanding of the area - that is the rain forest area of
"So, when we awarded the first section, from Odukpani-Itu to
"So, that slowed down work in that area and they didn't move to site until 2018.
"And the second section, which was from
"Sometime last year, you might recall that I was there visiting with the governor, I actually went twice and we focused first on the link road from Alese Ugep area because that was a very big bad one, that one used to take like, three, four days to traverse a 70 kilometer road.
"Now, we have that under control, resolved, motorable in the first phase to Odukpani. That has reduced the journey time there to less than two hours, from days. So, again, it's a work in progress."
On the recent collapsed of a section of the Lokoja-Kabba road, the minister attributed the incident to natural causes.
He said: "As we go through the rainy season, this is the context in which to locate the Lokoja-Kabba.
"It's a failure caused by nature and aging. And, again, an opportunity to share with you what we have. We expect that these things will happen, but we don't know where it will happen every time."
While noting that his ministry was often unable to respond to such failures, he called for a contingency maintenance fund, which he said should have a sizable amount.
"So, we've been proposing that
"There must be a contingency, a sizable sum, because when we see failures, last year, we had a problem like that in Kebbi, where roads were washed away.
"We couldn't respond because we didn't have the resources. But we will lean on FERMA.
"Well, traditionally back in
(NAN)
Copyright Premium Times. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com)., source