The FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello, has declared that it is the priority of his Administration to ensure the completion of all road projects within its domain as such to address progress of numerous infrastructure on ongoing in the FCT.
Such projects, according to the Minister, includes the B6 and B12 Roads otherwise known as Constitution and Independence Avenues respectively leading to the magnificent World Trade Center.
The Minister made this disclosure when he paid an unscheduled visit to the project site of these central boulevards on Monday.
The roads which traverse the World Trade Centre and the Diplomatic Zones, Malam Bello said, are major infrastructure that hold the key to the economic and social vibrancy of the city.
He hoped that completion of the roads will enable allotees develop their plots and bring out the skyline of the city centre.
The Minister expressed delight at the partial opening of some segments of the Constitutions road which, he observed, has already brought some relief on the traffic coming from Airport Road into the heart of the city.
The FCT Minister indicated that he was happy that motorists coming from the Airport can now drive straight across the Churchgate building without the detour which made driving clumsy. He expressed satisfaction that the Julius Berger Nigeria Plc has justified all payments made to it while reminding them of the need for proper installation of street lights at strategic points.
Works on the roads were very skeletal since 2011 because of paltry budgetary provisions. But recently the present Administration, the Director of Engineering revealed, cleared all the backlog of payments owed the company. This has resulted in a massive push to complete the projects in keeping with the Administration’s commitment to completing major infrastructural projects which are key to bolstering the commercial and cultural lives of the city.
The completed segments include the bridges near the World Trade Centre, the National Stadium and Magic Land along with their complementary ramps, loops, arterial and tangent roads.
Briefing the Minister, the Acting Director of Engineering, Engr. Shehu Ahmed, said the scope was to complete the outer carriageways and their bridges as the inner ones have been completed earlier. He declared that motorists can now travel in dual mode to Three Arm Zone on the Constitution Road.
He disclosed that some major arterials were added to the scope of work by the present Administration, to make the road more functional, in view of the major train station by the World Trade Centre and the anticipated completion of the Rail Mass Transit project by the end of December this year.
In his remarks at the occasion, the Divisional Manager of Julius Berger Plc, the contracting firm, Dr. Lars Richter, said that the funding which the company got from the present Administration has facilitated the mobilisation of their personnel and machinery to work and that everything is going well.
He declared, as you can see, we are working in all five nodal areas at the same time and we hope to continue to do so as long as fund is made available.”
Dr. Richter gave assurances that some segments of the works would be completed before December this year, some in 12 months’ time, while the entire works, including the Independence Avenue would be fully delivered in two years’ time.
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