Today, Friday the 29th of January, the Federal Government would receive the Outline Business Case Certificate of Compliance for 12 pilot federal highways billed for concession.
The concession of the roads may also be an indication of the return of toll gates as concessionaires will have to recoup their investments.
The information was received by the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing in Abuja that the 12 roads were under the ministry’s Highway Development Management Initiative.
A correspondent of Punch News Paper gathered that the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission would present the certificate to the ministry today at the FMWH headquarters in Abuja.
It was further gathered that the 12 highways combined represent about 1,963km and less than 5.6 per cent of Nigeria’s 35,000km federal highway network.
The 12 routes of the pilot phase include Benin-Asaba, Abuja-Lokoja, Kano-Katsina, Onitsha-Owerri, Shagamu-Benin and Abuja-Keffi-Akwanga.
Others include Kano-Shuari and Potiskum-Damaturu, Lokoja-Benin, Enugu-Port Harcourt, Ilorin-Jebba, Lagos-Ota-Abeokuta, and Lagos-Badagry-Seme border.
A document on the objectives of the HDMI stated that the initiative would attract sustainable investment/funding in the development of road infrastructure.
It further said that the HDMI would maximize the use of assets along the right-of-way and develop other highway furniture.
The HDMI, according to the ministry, aims at developing an ecosystem along with the federal highway network by bringing multi-dimensional resources of skills, finance, technology and efficiency into national highway governance.
It revealed that the home-grown initiative would become the lasting solution to the development, management and maintenance of Nigeria’s 35,000km federal highways.
