Why cost of Nasarawa-Benue bridge is high –SURE-P
From what you have seen so far, how far has the project gone?Well, my style of leadership is anything you expect, you must inspect it. If you expect something and you don’t inspect it, you may not see what you want.I’ve been signing papers and today when the convener said they were coming to see […]
From what you have seen so far, how far has the project gone?
Well, my style of leadership is anything you expect, you must inspect it. If you expect something and you don’t inspect it, you may not see what you want.
I’ve been signing papers and today when the convener said they were coming to see IPC number 10, I said I want to see also, because I have been signing papers of billions. We started this job from ground zero, so I really wanted to see what my predecessor and I have been signing. I’m impressed that from the redesigning of this bridge to what it is today, it’s something to be proud of. From what I’ve heard from the locals, they’re grateful to the federal government.
We have now seen that this bridge if completed will link quickly the north central part of Nigeria with the southern part especially the south-south and south-east with the rest of the country. So it is a laudable effort and I must congratulate those who thought it, those who designed it and those who made it a dream come true. I hope that the contractors, the consultants and all of us that are stakeholders will ensure that come 2015 this bridge is delivered.
N36 billion for only 3.8km road, isn’t that too much?
As a lay man, I used to think that way. If you have seen what has gone into this, the iron rods, the pipes are taller than me; I actually stood in one of the pipes. The pipe goes down more than 30 meters into the ground. That pipe is filled with iron rods, gravels and concrete. It’s quite a length. Just calculate how many bags of cement, gravels and the filling of it.
It’s very easy for us to criticize. That’s why I always say seeing is believing. Honestly, any person be him an engineer that comes and sees what is going on here will see that it’s money well spent.
How do you stop duplication of projects between SURE-P and Ministry of Works?
SURE-P and the Ministry of Works are working for the same purpose. That’s to satisfy and please Nigerians. We also have our credibility at stake, so we make sure we work with the ministry. The project implementation unit (PIU) is from the ministry of works and they work with us on projects.
This bridge is 100 percent SURE-P. Let’s take Abuja-Lokoja road. This year, FG voted N12.5 billion of SURE-P money into the road, so we sit with the ministry of works and calculate with their consultants and see what N12.5 billion can take because they have a lot of roads in Nigeria, and then we ask them to hand off that part and bring all the IPCs to us. We then go with them to inspect the projects, and make sure the payment is done.
Because there is so much to be done by the ministry, they can now shift to another project. At any given time, our books are there. Anybody who wants to see credibility can come and see. We’ll show the books of what SURE-P has done with the money allocated to the projects and what the ministry has done with their lying projects. There is no duplication; we’re all working for one purpose, which is the comfort, safety and the good life of Nigerians.
Can you tell us other projects handled by SURE-P?
Last year, SURE-P had 11 projects and FG asked us to intervene. Let me also use this opportunity to say that the SURE-P money is a trust between Nigerians and their government and government has passed that trust to us in the committee. We have delegated that trust to the sub-committee. We have a committee of 21 Nigerians representing different sectors and these groups are divided into sub committees to make the job easier.
This year, in addition to our old programmes there’s a programme on HIV/AIDS that is taking about N8 billion of SURE-P money; there is the eradication of polio that is taking N6.6 billion of SURE-P money. Also there is building of stroke center in the country that will take care of people that have stroke, because the statistics are alarming. This is a condition that one can recover from and begin a normal life if given the proper care. Government has shown commitment to the project by voting N450 million as support.
We have the community service, women youth employment (CSWYE) to encourage youth employment; we have the FERMA project which also has the public work side of it to help the young people remain in their communities without necessarily having to move to urban centers in search of jobs. We also have the technical vocational educational training. For example, you can have all the power stations in this country but if the people to man them are not trained, they’re useless. So we are working with government and the power authority to train and we have started training 220 young Nigerian engineers who will man all the stations and the substations on completion.
We also have the railway, it’s SURE-P that made it possible for rail to run from Lagos to Kano. Now, we’re working with our contractors, PIU’s and all other stakeholders to make sure that by the end of this year we have the trains working from Port Harcourt to Enugu, Makurdi, Kafanchan up to Gombe and then from Kafanchan to Kaduna.