Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen, in this interview with our Deputy Editor, Nation’s Capital, Yomi Odunuga, and Correspondent, Dele Anofi, speaks on the remarkable improvement in the road sector among others. Excerpts:
About a year-and-a-half ago, you were quite positive about your ability to transform the road sector, are you still positive two years into your tenure?
For me it has been one-and-half-year of hard work because I was very optimistic about turning around the Ministry of Works and the road sector in Nigeria for the better. A year-and-a-half back, Nigerian roads were described as death traps and one-and-half-year on, clearly you can no longer describe our roads in those terms. Once again, Nigeria roads are looking like what they should look like. They are now looking like the roads of 20 years ago when they were first built and this is exactly what this administration has achieved in the road sector. For once, Nigerians are beginning to see the possibility these things can be done. We have been able to make tremendous progress in road development. For instance, we have completed 32 road projects. In fact, people have said that the Federal Ministry of Works in the past 15 years has never completed a road project but, in a very short time, we have completed 32 road projects that cut across the six geo-political zones of the country. In the South East, the Onitsha-Owerri road has been completed, as well as work from the Head Bridge that has been fully completed. We have been able to transform what was once a two-lane road at a time to about six lanes with the service line intact and all the erosion ravaged areas in that stretch of 3 kilometres have been fully recovered. In the South West, from Benin to Ore to Sagamu, we have done substantially well there. You will recall that one-and-half- years ago, it used to take people 10, 12 or 13 hours to Lagos from Benin but today in three hours you are in Lagos from Benin. That is much improvement from what it was before and on that alignment particularly from Benin to Ofosu, it is about the best road we have in this country. If you go to the North Central, we have a flagship to showcase, the Vom-Manchok road has been completed and it is a showpiece traversing rocky terrains. Then the Langtang-Shemdan road has also been completed. We have accelerated work on the Abuja-Lokoja road. We started by completing the Giri catchment. Today there is a flyover in Gwagwalada; the Gwagwalada new bridge has been completed as well as section 1 and section 2 that have met and joined at a point to be able to drive substantial kilometres of dual carriage way on that road today. Hopefully, by the first quarter of next year, that road will be fully completed from Abuja to Lokoja. Up North, we have been able to complete quite some project in the North East, the Kano Maiduguri road has recorded progress despite the security challenges in that particular axis. We have about five contractors working there being the singular longest dual carriage way we are embarking on, it is over 510 kilometres from Kano to Maiduguri. Each of the five contractors has lost engineers to the security challenges in that part of the country but we have engaged them continuously and we have been able to ensure that the projects are still very active. The Gombe Bypass, Gombe-Postikum road, the Yola Numan road are all completed. When you come to the North West you will discover that project like the Katsina-Daura road has been fully completed. Indeed we have quite a number of completed projects across the country. Of course, these are major road projects, but beyond the major ones, we have also embarked on aggressive road maintenance across the country. Before, it was difficult to drive from Enugu to Port Harcourt. But, since the last quarter of last year, we moved in maximally and within six weeks we brought back that road to the condition where people can now drive without stress. Other major reconstruction work on that axis is being procured as we speak. In the South-West, the Ife-Sekona road has been completed. In the economic melting down in the country, Lagos, we are not doing badly by completing the replacement of the eight defective joints on Third Mainland Bridge and maintenance of the bridge. We also moved into Lagos-Ibadan dual carriage way to make it motorable for the road users at the end of year and the proper reconstruction for the Lagos-Ibadan expressway will commence shortly.
So what is delaying the award of contract for the reconstruction of a major road like the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway?
We opened the bid last year and we have finally analysed the bid and it has gone to the Bureau of Public Procurement for Letter of no Objection. Once we receive Letter of No Objection from Bureau of Public Procurement, the project will be awarded and Nigerians will, once again, see contractors in full swing. One major change on that road is the redesign of that particular axis. For example, we plan to construct a flyover around the area where we have a number of churches which usually lead to bottleneck particularly around the Redeemed Church. We have now introduced a flyover around there to separate the traffic to the church and the thorough traffic that is traversing from Lagos to other states. That is going to solve the problem around the Redemption camp permanently. Beyond Ibadan, we have completed the section 1 from Ibadan to Oyo, that dual carriage way section has been completed and opened to traffic. Then, of course, from Oyo to Ogbomoso where one of our contractors, RCC, is currently working, work has also started there. The Ogbomoso to Ilorin road has been completed. Within the period under review, we were able to also maintain from Ilorin through Jebba-Mokwa up to Kaduna. As we speak, procurement is on-going for the major reconstruction of the Ilorin-Jebba-Mokwa road. All over the country, we have quite a number of success stories to tell in terms of development.
What about the roads in the South-South?
In the South-South, we have also done quite a number of roads there. The major economic roads there, for instance, the Refinery Road in Warri, the dualization of the Onne Port road in Rivers State have all been completed. Of course, the East-West road that people always look forward to on that axis is not part of the ministry’s portfolio, We have also been able to maintain the Benin-Ofosu road, Benin-Warri dual carriage way and the Benin-Warri and Benin-Asaba dual carriage ways. Beyond that, we are in collaboration with the Akwa Ibom State Government on the dualization from Ikot Ekpene to Aba and it is ongoing. Some of our other roads are the Calabar-Ugep road, part of the Pan African Highway, the roads from Ogoja to Ikom, Ikom to Ufom that borders the Cameroun are all in the South-South. Only recently, work also commenced on the Vandekeiya-Obudu cattle ranch road and we have quite a number of roads.
You must have been lucky to access huge funds to carry out all the projects mentioned. How did you do it?
Well, in a way, funding is still a challenge in the Federal Ministry of Works. However, we have embarked on major reform that will address that particular issue. What we call reform of the road sector. As we speak, we now have a draft bill for the road sector. About two months ago, the National Council on Privatisation approved the Road Sector Reform and the draft bill was also approved. Right now, they have been moved to the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice and after that it will be presented to the Federal Executive Council for consideration and approval. Once that approval is granted, it will now go to the National Assembly for enactment. Once that is achieved, we would have succeeded in changing the face of funding our projects. With that reform, we are going to see new institutional framework for road development because the reform will necessarily entail the establishment of a National Road Fund that will solve this funding problem in the road sector because it will close the funding gap for the road sector. This is because we will now have road sector funding and of course it is also going to bring into being the Federal Roads Authority so that road development programme can be fully institutionalised in our nation as it is obtainable in other parts of the world. That is in the offing but while that is going on, we cannot just fold our arms. We have to make the best use of our time. As at today, we have about 195 on-going projects in the road sector and there is no way we will be able to finish all that in the next two years. So we have to prioritise and that is why we are able to make sense out of the chaotic condition of roads in our country. So, to some extent, we have achieved some of the things we set out to achieve considering our portfolio spread around the six geo-political zones of this country. In the North-West for instance, the total road is about N255 billion, in the North Central it is about N262 billion, in the North East, it is about 332 billion, in the South-West, it is about N236 billion, in the South-East, it is about 150 billion and in the South-South it is about N159 billion. We have to strategise by giving priority to the arterial roads that link city to city which are truly inter-state and those roads that provide access to economic centres like seaport, airport, industrial areas and major areas across the country. So, that is the way we are prioritising our road development programmes and it has been yielding results. It is as a result of that prioritisation that we are also focusing on the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway because that provides access to the seaports. We are making sure and steady progress on that road. When we came in 2011, my first operation visit to a project was to that particular road and I met a completely flooded and demarcated road. In fact, those territories where the demarcations were, if you go there you will not believe that it is the same alignment because we have been able to substantially recover them. Today we are working on Ijesha bus stop. They are almost completing the trailer part and dedicated to Tin Can Island port. Once these projects are completed, we will be able to move over 400 trucks and tankers out of that road so that the road can truly become what it used to be.
Nigerians have expressed the fear that, with all these road projects going on, a time will come when they will be asked to pay toll fares on some roads. How realistic is that fear?
We do not expect the private partners to bring private sector fund to a road development project and then stop them from recouping their funds. The only way you recoup the investment on a PPP project is through tolling. Even at that, the tolls are reasonable to the extent that the people will be willing to pay because of the service they are enjoying. For private sector project like PPP project, you can’t run away from paying some kind of usual related charges. It is normal and that is the frame work all over the world so Nigeria cannot be an exception. However, what we are doing as a government is that, on government roads, you can attest to it that no tolls are being collected because the government is still trying to recover its roads from the present disrepair. Moreover, it is not fair to collect tolls on a bad road. Even as a Government, you cannot also collect tolls on a road when there is no alternative for people who may chose not to ply the roads. But when PPP is involved, where private funds are mobilised, there is no way tolls will not be collected. It is the right thing to do.
With the experience the Federal Government had with Bi-Courtney, do you think that is the best way to go?
All over the world, the PPP vehicle is being used to realise good development projects including the African continent. So, why should Nigerians think that because the PPP transaction with Bi-Courtney went awry, there will never be another PPP project in this country again? That is not right. There is no way the Bi-Courtney experience will affect PPP transactions in Nigeria. We have learnt a lot of lessons from that fiasco and the government has better capacity now to deliver PPP projects. Government has learnt from the past and at the time that particular transaction commenced in 2008/2009, clearly the government did not truly have the comprehensive knowledge and capacity to drive a PPP project because it has never been involved in one. However, since then, in terms of capacity building, the government has done a lot in order to be able to drive PPP projects. Don’t forget that it is for that purpose that the Infrastructure Concessioning Regulatory Commission was established in the first place, and I believe it has come of age. The ICRC has been able to regulate proper PPP transaction in our country today.
You once vowed to restructure the ministry for effective delivery of set targets. Were you able to make the changes and how effective were the changes on the activities of the ministry?
In fact, the ministry embarked on restructuring in 2011 and it is responsible for the success story we have today in the road sector. We discovered that having one big Director of Federal Highways who is domiciled in Abuja while directing the over 35,000 kilometres of federal roads in this country from his office can never be effective. This is because most times, being human, he will not be able to go through all those alignments. So, his effectiveness is called to question because he cannot continue to rely on officials who sometimes may not even pay visits to those projects until about three or six months and sometimes a year. What we did was to create a new project management structure by creating six regional Directorates of Federal Highways with the Directors located in each geo-political zone. For instance, the Director of Federal Highway, South-West has his office in Ibadan. From Ibadan, he moves to Lagos easily, he can move up to Ogbomoso, Lagos, Akure and others. So, he is well grounded on what is going on there and can, therefore, not be a stranger. It is the same thing with others and it is the root of the unusual progress we have made at the Ministry of Works in the one-and-half-years we are reviewing today. The changes in the new Department of Material Geo-technic and Quality Control have also helped in ensuring that issues that border on quality of works of contractors are now removed from the hands of those Zonal Directors who are on the field for checks and balances. It is very important for checks and balances. It has also proved very helpful in ensuring that contractors actually carried out our work the way they were designed and scope and the way the specification was put in black and white. That department is like the policing department in the Ministry because they can go to any ongoing work and direct for covered work to be opened. If they find anything unusual in the process, they will ensure that the correct thing is done with the full support of the office of the Minister.
How far have you gone in the drive to convince contractors to adopt modern technology in road construction especially in dropping the use of kerosene in mixing bitumen?
On that issue of cut back bitumen, it is no longer allowed with effect from January 2013. It is no longer acceptable on our projects in line with the decision made at National Council of Works in Lagos in April 2012. We are enforcing it. We are now using bitumen emulsion in place of cut back bitumen mixed with kerosene. This is because it is not environmentally-friendly. So we have no issue with that. We are implementing it right now. Beyond that, one of the new innovations we have put in place in our project management is to ensure that only permanent works now qualify for interim valuation in the Federal Ministry of Works. People may not understand the import of that particular policy. In the past, when a road contract is given to a contractor, he goes to site, clears it, bulldozes the place, he unearths a lot of earth work because as they say there is a lot of money in earth work and they get paid. After that they disappear. Then rain comes and washes away the earth work the contractors would have done. Then, after two or three years when the government has money and they want to go back to that project, they now find out they have to go all over again doing the earth work because the contractors could really claim that at the time they left the site it was intact. Now that it has been washed out by rain, the government will now have to pay for it again. Now what we do is, if it is only the earth work you do, we will no longer pay. You have to stabilise it and you have to do permanent work. In other words, after earth work you must have a firm base. After the earth work, you must have the soft base, that is, do the earthwork, then stone base then the soft base which people also call the base course. It is only at that point that we will now value and pay and that is saving the Government a lot of money. When I say a lot of money, if you realise that most of the augmentations that have been implemented in most projects, more than 40% of the augmented sum usually arise from wash out on projects and they run into billions of naira, then you will appreciate the effect of this policy. It will help the government to save a lot of money in the system and we have started implementing that. With effect from January this year, most certificates, if the work is not up to permanent nature that can go through my table here, the approval of payment is impossible. The initiative is also making contractors to be responsible because we are in an era of performance management. It is only in that way that we can truly track our progress.
