By Bisola Adeyemo
The Federal Government has ensured that Abuja Lokoja dual carriageway project will be on completion by the end of this year.
Director Highway Construction and Rehabilitation, Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, Engineer Funsho Adebiyi reiterated government’s commitment to complete the project while inspecting the progress made so far last week in Lokoja.
Adebiyi disclosed that the Federal Government was currently on massive reconstruction of many major roads across the nation with the Abuja-Lokoja highway section as a fraction that should be completed soon, daily times reports
“I want to assure you and our road users that this road will be completed soon. We are putting every effort to ensure that
“This project is completed as quickly as is humanly possible.
“In fact, the minister, Raji Fashola has directed that all efforts, attention and resources be channeled toward the completion of the project before the end of this year and we cannot do otherwise.
“We cannot afford to fail. Before the end of this year, we want to try to make sure that the entire four sections are completed,” he said.
According to the Director, the project was broken into four sections and awarded to different contractors with section one being handled by Dantata and Sawoe, presently at 96 per cent completion.
Section two being handled by RCC was completed about four years ago after attaining 100 per cent completion, while Section three being executed by bulletin has reached 49 per cent completion just as section four under Gitto Construction Company had reached about 72 per cent completion.
He explained that poor funding, insecurity, management challenges
among contractors and location of Lokoja modern market are some of the factors that militated against the timely completion of the project
The director expressed worry over the amount provided in the budget has been a major challenge over the years as all sites are facing different sources of funding.
Another challenge is the NATACO road and the Lokoja modern market every four days and there is the human activities there are quite heavy, constituting traffic gridlock which solution could be a fly- over for an interchange