Toll Gates To Return To Federal Highways

•Lagos/lbadan Expressway to be completed in eight weeks

Toll gates are coming back to the L agos-Ibadan Expressway,the Federal Government said yesterday. This, according to the government, is to guarantee its regular maintenance and sustainability.

It also expressed its readiness to go ahead with its plan for the Public Private Partnership Policy (PPP) of sustaining infrastructure nationwide.

Minister of Works Mike Onolemenmen broke the news to reporters while on tour of North/South road from Lagos-Ibadan expressway linking Ibadan-Oyo-Ogbomoso-Ilorin road extending to Jebba, Mokwa, Kaduna, Kano and other northern states.

Onolemenmen toured the 52-kilometre Oyo-Ogbomoso Road, which is the Section 11 of the Ibadan-Ilorin Road being handled by Reynolds Construction Company (RCC) and expected to be completed next December.

He said toll gates would be introduced on the Lagos-Ibadan road as soon as the on-going reconstruction and expansion are completed by both the RCC and Julius Berger.

RCC is handling the Sagamu-Ibadan axis; Julius Berger PLC is handling the Sagamu-Lagos axis of the Expressway.

The move to reintroduce toll gates on highways nationwide, according to the minister, is to generate funds to “maintain these roads so that they would not go back to the sorry state we met it and similar others across the federation”.

He said when the roads are completed; people can drive from Lagos to the North.

On the termination of the concession for Lagos-Ibadan Expressway , the minister said the company, Bi-Courtney, was not doing well on it as it failed to meet up with the financial involvement needed to fix the road in record time.

Onolemenmen added that the Federal Government has the right to terminate it.

He referred to similar road projects that were terminated in India recently.

“I assure you that by the first quarter of next year, you will see a major difference on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

“In fact, the rehabilitation of Lagos\lbadan expressway will take eight weeks to complete.”

Julius Berger’s Division Manager West Woifang Loesser said it would meet government’s deadline and public expectation.

He said men and material have been deployed to site and have started reconstruction on the worst portion of the highway.

Responding to a question on the terminated concession agreement on the road, the minister retorted that the firm is free to go to court as the government acted according to the tenets of the concession agreement.

RCC site engineer Yehoda Leve, who conducted the minister and his team round the Oyo-Ogbomoso section of the road, said the job would be delivered as scheduled.