Ministry of Works and Housing begins procurement process for highway concession

Nigeria’s Ministry of Works and Housing has opened the e-portal for the submission of Request for Qualification applications.

The portal will aim to bring private sector resources and efficiency to the development and management of federal highway corridors under its novel Highway Management and Development Initiative.

The Minister of Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola had earlier disclosed that the portal would ensure competitiveness and guarantee transparency in the process.

“No staff of the Ministry will interface with the public in the running of the Highway Management and Development Initiative conceived in 2020, from procurement to implementation” Fashola said.

The Value-Added Concession component of the Highway Management and Development Initiative seeks to concession 12 federal highways to qualified individuals and consortia for management in the first phase.

The 12 highways which were carefully chosen to cover the six-geopolitical zones include the Benin-Asaba, Abuja-Lokoja, Kano-Katsina, Onitsha-Owerri, Shagamu-Benin, Abuja-Keffi-Akwanga and Kano-Maiduguri Expressways.

Others are Lokoja-Benin, Enugu-Port Harcourt, Ilorin-Jebba, Lagos-Ota-Abeokuta and Lagos-Badagry Expressways.

They amount to a total of 1,963.24 kilometres, which is 5.6 per cent of the 35,000km Federal road network.

The e-portal contains all the information the public needs, including access to relevant documents, news updates and videos and is also vital for e-procurement.

It is also important to note that the Federal Government is currently executing over 700 different contracts, which aggregates to the rehabilitation and reconstruction of over 13,000 km of roads and bridges across all thirty-six states, including the Federal Capital Territory.

Emmanuel Ukoh