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Nigeria’s minister of works, power and housing, Babatunde Fashola, says the completion of the 800-capacity trailer park being constructed opposite Tin-Can Island Port in Apapa, Lagos, will be funded with the 2017 budget.
Fashola was in Apapa yesterday to inspect the facility, which contract was awarded in 2009 by the Federal Ministry of Works, but abandoned two years ago as the contractor, Borini Prono, left site due to inadequate funding.
Curiously, the project was awarded without provision in its original design, for the shoreline protection, meaning that even when completed, the facility will be subject to threat from the lagoon surge, a development Fashola described as ‘poor engineering work.’
Fashola said the project had been delayed because for two years, the previous government failed to fund it, even when oil sold for $100 per barrel, thereby defeating the purpose for which it was conceived almost eight years.
The minister said he was at the site to assess the level of work done and what remained to be done so as to be armed with necessary facts when preparing for the 2017 appropriation. “The project was not captured in 2016 budget; but I am here to see what is left to be done so that I can seek funding for it in the 2017 appropriation,” Fashola said.
The minister, who acknowledged the deterioration of facilities within Apapa, attributing it to years of neglect and abandonment of the rail system, however, said the Federal Government was working on plans to revitalise the rail system, for haulage, stressing the movement of heavy goods on roads was not sustainable.
He also inspected the rehabilitated failed portion of Ijora-Apapa Bridge, where he instructed the contractor, Julius Berger, to undertake a comprehensive study of the bridge and furnish his office with all that was needed to be done, alongside the cost implication to enable the Federal Government work towards the total rehabilitation of the entire length, including the collapsing expansion joints.
The minister was conducted round the trailer park project by Paolo Prono, executive director, Borini Prono, and Osarieme Osakue, acting federal controller of works, South West, who told the minister that the project was at over 90 percent completion stage, and required more funding to deliver.
Osakue said a fresh proposal had, however, been forwarded to the government to undertake the shoreline protection not captured in the first contract, but was yet to be approved.
JOSHUA BASSEY
