Buhari awards N621.23bn road contract to NNPC, N309.9bn to Dangote

President Muhammadu Buhari had awarded contract for the reconstruction of 21 federal roads at the cost of N621.23 billion to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). The President also awarded another contract to Dangote Industries for the construction of five roads at the cost of N309.9 billion.

All the contracts awarded by the President were approved on Wednesday at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) at the State House, Abuja.

The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, disclosed the approval of the contracts on Wednesday, after the FEC meeting at the State House, Abuja.

The FEC approval included the reconstruction of 21 roads of 1,804.6 kilometres in the six geo-political zones;to be handled by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) through its own tax liabilities.

The FEC was said to have in July approved the award of a contract to Dangote Industries for the construction of five roads spreading 274.9 kilometres at the cost of N309.9 billion, funded by the company as tax credit.

Fashola highlighted: “Earlier this year, there were five other roads – the Kaduna Western bypass, the Lekki Port Road, the road from Shagamu through Papalanto, and a couple of others, and there is one road in Maiduguri. That was about N320 billion.

“So, today, we have another player. We have all the interested players who are still showing interest, but we haven’t concluded.

“We have another player who has shown interest and commitment to deploy taxes. It’s the government corporation known as NNPC.

“So, NNPC has identified 21 roads that it wants to deploy. Now, the instructive thing about this is that this initiative helps the government to achieve many things, including, ministerial mandates three and four, which we discussed at the last retreat.

“Ministerial mandates three and four, if you recall, was energy sufficiency, electric power and petroleum energy distribution across the country.

“Of course, petroleum energy distribution is being impacted positively and negatively, as the case may be the transport infrastructure which is the ministerial mandate four.

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“NNPC has sought, and the council has approved today that NNPC deploys tax resources to 21 roads, covering a total distance of 1,804.6 kilometres across the six geopolitical zones.

“Out of those 21 roads, nine are in North Central, particularly, Niger State. “The reason is that Niger State is a major storage centre for NNPC. NNPC is doing this to facilitate the total distribution across the country.”

Fashola assured of the completion of road projects in the South-West, which include the Lagos-Badagry Expressway, the Agabara junction, Ibadan to Ilorin (Oyo-Ogbomoso section).

He disclosed that three other roads are located in the North-East, two in the North-West, and two others in the South-East.

The minister said that the Odukpani-Itu-Ikot-Ekpene road has been fully covered to resolve the problem of financing regarding the execution of the road projects.

Fashola further said: “You have Aba-Ikot Ekpene in Abia and Akwa Ibom States. So, that’s a major link, then, you have Umuahia to Ikwuamo, to Ikot Ekpene road and so on and so forth.

“In the North-West, it is Gada Zaima-Zuru-Gamji road, and also Zaria-Funtau-Gusau-Sokoto road. In the North-East, it is Cham, Bali Serti and Gombe-Biu road.”

The minister was of the view that the government will no longer have financing problems for executing roads projects in the country.