The Federal Government has promised that the first 47 km of the under-construction Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway will be completed by May 2025.
David Umahi, the Minister of Works made the promise while visiting an evacuated but recently refilled portion of the road which was a waste site.
Umahi said the construction company was reliable and could do one kilometre of concrete pavement per day and thereby complete it within the specified timeframe.
He said the squatters along the corridors of the site would soon be removed as they had refused to relocate freely.
“I am very happy with the work and people have been asking me that we say this 47-kilometre will be commissioned by May 29, and they are counting months for me, and they are counting months for Hitech. But I have no fear about what Hitech is doing. First, it is good quality work; the most difficult aspect of this is the settlement of the sand,” he said.
Earlier, Mrs Olukorede Kesha, the Federal Controller of Works in Lagos, said that the evacuation of the garbage dumpsite had hindered the construction work. She said, however, that it would not make much difference in the overall schedule of the project.
“This place where we are standing, we encountered a huge deposit of refuse here; as you can see here, the contractor was asked to excavate and evacuate it. In some places, we had as deep as five to six meters of refuse, and the place where we are standing now was just at the formation level, so we are still going to fill on top of this,” Kesha said.
The 700-kilometre Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway will pass through the coastal states of Ogun, Ondo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers and Akwa Ibom.
The coastal road is expected to cost N15 trillion in total and has four billion naira per kilometre.
