The Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway will cost N4 billion per kilometer, not N8 billion as former Vice President Atiku Abubakar had claimed, according to David Umahi, Nigeria’s minister of works.
The entire project will cost N2.8 trillion to complete for a 700-kilometer expressway.
This was disclosed by Umahi during his guest appearance on Wednesday in Lagos on Television Continental News Hour.
The minister refuted claims that the project did not adhere to the proper procurement procedure, claiming that, contrary to popular belief, the contract was given based on counterfunding rather than a public-private partnership.Â
The Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential contender for 2023, Atiku Abubakar, questioned President Bola Tinubu’s decision to reportedly award the contract to Gilbert Chagoury’s Hitech without conducting a competitive bidding process.
He added that the president had not revealed the entire cost of the proposed Lagos-Calabar route.
Atiku questioned why N1.06 trillion, or 6% of the project, was approved by the Tinubu administration for the project’s pilot phase, which started in Eko Atlantic and is anticipated to end at the Lekki Deep Sea Port.
In his statement on Tuesday, Umahi stated that the ministry is dedicated to caution and promised to disclose the actual cost, even in light of the skyrocketing costs of materials in the construction industry as a result of supply chain interruptions and commodity price inflation.
In the interview, the minister reaffirmed that the project would be finished in eight years and said the cost per kilometer would be N4 billion if concrete pavement was used on the four-lane carriageway.
In addition, the former Ebonyi governor clarified that while N1.06 trillion had been appropriated, not all of it had been spent.
“I will run the calculations for you. People are merely building castles without expertise or understanding of numbers. We will contrast the cross-section of the 700 kilometer, $11.1 billion, renegotiated deal that the former vice president described.”
“If you go back to what he quoted, you will receive more than N8 billion. Therefore, you will discover that our cost is N4 billion rather than the N8 billion reported by the previous vice president. This is because we used concrete, which should be more expensive given the type of terrain we have, and flexible pavement, which shouldn’t withstand the coastal route,” Umahi added.
Regarding the construction process, the minister clarified that the Engineering, Procurement, Construction, and Finance program—currently employed on the Abuja-Markurdi road project—was what the administration had in mind for the project instead of a private-public partnership.
“This administration did not envision the Private-Public Partnership project. Engineering, procurement, construction, and finance have always been in charge of it.”
This claim, however, is at odds with the minister’s statement made on September 23, 2023, during the project’s unveiling, which stated that Hitech Construction would finance the project via a public-private partnership model.
“I’d want to declare that this initiative is PPP-based. The Hitech team will search for the funds.”
Speaking to the media, he added, “The good news is that they have already found the money, so we don’t waste our time talking, holding meetings, and wasting resources.”
