The
Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), says
contractors will resume work on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway next week.
Fashola, who spoke at the inaugural Buharimeter Town Hall meeting in
Abuja on Thursday, said contractors had abandoned several projects
because the last administration owed them money.
The former governor of Lagos State said even though the Muhammadu
Buhari-led administration had yet to release funds to the contractors,
they were willing to return to site because they trusted the integrity
of the new government.
Fashola stated, “In 2014, we spent N45bn on roads for the whole
country and we spent N18bn on roads in 2015. Now, the fallout of
meetings with our contractors generally is that they have not been paid
for three years but budgets were made for the last three years.
“We have been having meetings with some contractors on the basis of
our credibility, our collective integrity, saying to them go back to
site.
“Our contractors will go back to site on Monday next week; they have told me they will return to the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
“They have not been paid but that is what change means, that this
government is credible and believable. If we say we will pay, we will
pay. And this is what you will see in places like Iheala and a few other
places where we are intervening but what is important now is that we
have met with all our contractors and identified contracts that have
survived the budget, we have approved those contracts for funding and in
the next few days to weeks, the disbursement will start for many of the
roads.”
Fashola, however, lamented that the activities of the Niger Delta
Avengers were seriously affecting power generation due to the vandalism
of oil and gas installations.
He said for Nigeria to be better, citizens must protect government
installations like it was done in other countries, stating that the
newly constructed railway was already being vandalised.
“The Minister of Transportation (Rotimi Amaechi) just told me that
vandals were removing nuts and rails for railway,” Fashola said.
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