From: FRED ITUA, Abuja
The Senate has sealed an arrangement that would facilitate private sector funding of the rehabilitation and construction Lagos-Ibadan Expressway in two years.
A source, familiar with the arrangements, told Daily Sun that Senate President Bukola Saraki led the Senate “through successful engagements to facilitate necessary collaboration that will result in the complete rehabilitation of the strategic Lagos-Ibadan Expressway in two years, with private sector funding.”
The source noted that “major parties with interests on policy, funding and concession, as well as contractors currently engaged on the highway have agreed on major issues that will encourage private sector involvement in developing basic national infrastructure and alternative funding as vital input into developing national assets.”
He added that “this development will ensure that public funds that will be devoted to this vital national asset will be freed to be utilized on other federal highway across the country.”
The arrangement, he said, “will also guarantee that the highway will be completed within the next two years, a major goal of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.”
He said that Saraki believes that “the successful public asset management and private funding collaboration will further signal the capacity of the Nigerian economy to attract and expand the scope of private sector involvement in developing vital infrastructure.”