The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Works and Housing (FMWH), Alhaji Babangida Hussaini, said on Friday that the rehabilitation of the Abuja-Kaduna highway was moving at a fast pace, ahead of the envisaged total reconstruction of the road.
Hussaini stated this during an inspection visit with his entourage, along the Abuja- Kaduna highway, to various sections of the rehabilitated portions of the road.
He disclosed that the visit was directed by the Minister, to ascertain the degraded portions of the Abuja-Kaduna highway that needed to be rehabilitated for easy flow of traffic, before the major reconstruction of the road was undertaken.
“At the same time, we are also ordered to take note of the pace of the work at various zones in Kaduna, by the Julius Berger construction company, and we have seen they are doing a good and impressive job.
The Permanent Secretary assured that with the pace of the ongoing work, the road would be delivered on time as ”the contractor has brought more equipment and work gangs that will hasten the process of construction”, he said.
He recalled that the ministry’s technical team, headed by the director of construction and rehabilitation, had in the past weeks supervised the road and given assurance that the road would be delivered by 2023.
Hussaini, however, noted the initial slow pace of construction, blaming it on changes made on the scope and design of the project.
“When change is effected on scope and design of any project, it sure affects the pace, but we have addressed all the challenges and got approval from the president to engage the contractor and resolve all the gray areas.
He further noted that pot holes along the road were impediments and a security threat.
“In two weeks time, those critically bad portions of the road will be addressed, the palliative reconstruction before the main content measures we have taken will underscore the seriousness of the government on timely delivery of this project” he said.
Also, speaking, Mr Funso Adebiyi, the Director, Highways Construction and Rehabilitation of FMWH, said the huge public outcry over the Abuja, Kaduna and Kano road was the fact that the roads had been destroyed.
He explained that the roads were constructed about 25 years ago, and the traffic volume from that time to present had increased so much, against what it was designed for and had outlived its life span.
Adebiyi further said that the initial plan of the project was just rehabilitation and since it was awarded, it had reached over 70 per cent completion.
“Later, we discovered that because of the age of the road, the deterioration had become more pronounced, beyond what we comprehended at the initial award stage”, he said.
He said that the initial directive was to increase the roads to three lanes, but “when you do the estimate, increasing the lanes would have costs beyond what we can do, so we are now back to square one where we are told to go for total reconstruction.
“Carrying on total reconstruction now has made us go back to that same track, but we are happy we have made significant progress”, he said.
Adebiyi further said at section ‘A1’ which included Abuja, Kaduna and Kano, had six contractors working simultaneously on the roads.
“From Kano to Maiduguri, we have five contractors working, while three contractors were also working simultaneously from Kano to Katsina and had reached between 80 to 90 per cent completion at most of the sections.
” From Zaria to Funtua to Gusau and Sokoto, Abuja to Abaji, Kabba to Ilorin, we all have contractors working simultaneously, the whole country is like one huge site”, he said.
He also said more than 40kms had also been completed under section two (Kaduna-Zaria), and more than 70kms completed under section three (Zaria-Kano).
“While some sections of the road are also at different levels of completion, palliative/remedial work are being carried out on the sections that are critically bad to facilitate ease of passage for motorists.
“We are working to meet up with the deadline and at the same time subjecting all the work to quality assurance tests to deliver a good job,’’ Adebiyi said.
He appealed to Nigerians to be patient with the government in its commitment to deliver quality work that would stand the test of time.(NAN)
