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Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola
Nigeria’s Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, Friday, directed Julius Berger Nigeria Plc., to complete rehabilitation works on the Lagos/Ibadan expressway before the end of the year, to guarantee the safety of road users.
Fashola gave the order while inspecting Section One of the project which covers the Lagos end to the Sagamu Interchange, which is being handled by Julius Berger, saying work must be completed before the end of November.
According to Fashola, “People will be travelling home and coming back. I also would want you to put safety signs; if you have to put reflective stickers and lightings to reduce accidents and casualties at night and during the day as well, please do.
“We want to see how this can translate into a better motoring experience during the eid el Kabir festival which is coming up around the 12th of September.
“Start calibrating your activities to prepare to take in that traffic, but the big one will come at the end of the year; the target is to make the experience better than that of last year.’’
The minister told journalists while inspecting the long bridge that the facility was undergoing a general maintenance.
He said: “When they finish this, motorists will experience something better and closer to when this bridge was first built, as against those gearing experiences you have had on this road.
“This is one section that they have to finish; they (engineers) tell me it will be completed before the end of year.
“We are mindful of the heavy traffic we will have at the end of year; we want to make the motoring experience better for road users.”
The minister, however, appealed to road users to be patient on the highway while construction works were ongoing.
He contested the completion period of 2019 for the entire project with the Julius Berger Division West Commercial Manager, Mr. Tobias Meletschns, saying: “I signed a different agreement for an earlier date and do not subscribe to that completion date. I will take it up with your management. “
Meletschns had shown the minister graphical illustrations of the various sections of the project with completion periods ranging from November 2016 to March 2019.
Earlier, the Technical Manager of the project, Mr. Thomas Christl, informed the minster that the firm was working simultaneously on three portions of the highway, to speed up construction work.
He said that although traffic had been a bottleneck on the axis, the firm had evolved a working plan to ensure that the road was motorable by November. (NAN)
