The Federal government has approved N30 billion contract augmentations for the completion of the 74 kilometre Nasarawa to Loko road in Nasarawa State.
The Minister of Works and Housing Babatunde Fashola disclosed this to State House Correspondents in the Presidential Villa, Abuja, after the week’s virtual Federal Executive Council meeting, presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Fashola explained that Council granted three approvals for contracts’ augmentation, all summing up to a total of N38.436 billion, for the Ministry of Works and Housing, including the Nasarawa to Loko Road project.
According to him, the 74 kilometre road project, which was first awarded in 2006, when eventually completed, would reduce the travel time between Oturkpo, in Benue State, to Abuja by three and a half hours, adding that it is part of the administration’s projects aimed at lifting Nigerians out of poverty.
The Nation quoted him as saying, “The third one is the 74 kilometre Nasarawa to Loko Road. That is the road that was awarded, I believe, in 2006, so it’s 15 years today, 74 kilometres and it has not been completed.
“This road links the Loko-Oweto Bridge, which we inherited and which we have completed and that Loko-Oweto Bridge links Nasarawa to Benue, across the River Benue and also connects to the Oweto to Oshogbedo Road, which we also inherited, which we have completed.
“The complete lane from Oturkpo to Nasarawa ought to be facilitated by this 74 kilometre road. The contractor has struggled with just about five kilometres of it since 2006, and a small bridge. So, what we’ve proposed was that instead of going through the long process of termination and all of that, we proposed and Council agreed that the contractor who finished the bridge and the contractor who finished the road, because they were all awarded to different contractors before we came, should join this contractor and take up the remainder.
“So, we’ve limited the contractor who was originally awarded this road to just 10.8 kilometres, that’s all he will do. So, we’ve awarded 42 kilometres to the contractor who did the Oshogbedo-Oweto Road and we’ve then awarded 21 kilometres, which is the part joining the bridge directly, to the contractor who completed the bridge.
“So, all of these totaling a revised project sum of about N30 billion, shared amongst the three contractors.’’
