- Govt to create 23m jobs in plan’s first phase
The Federal Government on Wednesday unveiled an initiative capable of generating N163.323 billion in a new arrangement to concession 10 routes across the country.
It also said the initiative will create at least 23,322,000 jobs in the first phase, which covers 2,275 kilometres of the Federal highways spread across 10 routes in the six geopolitical zones.
Works and Housing Minister Babatunde Fashola announced the initiative during his presentation before the National Assembly Joint Committee on Works in Abuja.
The minister said the real focus of the new Highway Development and Management Initiative (HDMI) is about the management of the nation’s asset.
He explained that the initiative is anchored on private sector engagement to develop and manage the nation’s road networks.
The rationale behind the idea, he said, is that it would provide an avenue to mitigate paucity of funds, which hindered road development in the past.
Fashola said: “What we seek to do mainly is to bring more diverse capacities to managing our infrastructure. In the process of doing that, we have created opportunities for investments.
“Because the undertaking is big, we have decided to take it in very small sizes, just to test and see what it looks like and what is possible. We believe that if we start small and succeed, we can then scale up and grow big.
“So, we are looking at 10 routes for the value-added concession across Nigeria’s highway. As much as possible, we have tried to ensure that there is geographic spread in those 10 routes as pilot.
“We may not be perfect here, but we have tried as much as possible to ensure that no zone is left out.
“These 10 routes that we want to use for Phase One only covers 2,275 kilometres out of our network of 35,000. So, this just represents two per cent of a sample pilot scheme.
“The estimated investment that we expect is in the order of N163.323 billion; that is the real challenge now to investors: whether or not we have an asset that attracts their appetite.
“If you break that down on a straight-line graph, it would mean roughly N16.3 billion per route.
“If you compound that, it would mean that by the second phase, we might be eliciting something in the area of N326 billion from 12 or 13 per cent of our road network.
“This speaks to 23,322,000 jobs in Phase One and the possibility of doubling that in phase two.
“This includes not only employment during construction but also employment post-construction, post-development and through continuous maintenance.”
According to the minister, the 10 routes earmarked for the first phase of the scheme include the Benin-Asaba, Abuja-Lokoja, Kaduna-Kano, Onitsha-Owerri-Aba, Shagamu-Benin, Abuja-Keffi-Akwanga, Kano-Maiduguri, Lokaja-Benin, Enugu-Port-Harcourt and the Ilorin-Jebba highways.
