Motorists and pedestrians who ply the Apapa-Wharf of Lagos can now let out a sigh of relief as the MD of Nigerian Ports Authority, Hadiza Bala Usman declared her decision embark on the reconstruction of the access road into the port in Lagos recently.
The road which has been in a deplorable state for over a decade has recorded a high number of avoidable accidents due to the caliber of heavy duty trucks laden with loaded containers that ply the route.
The Managing Director of NPA, Hadiza Usman, told a stakeholders’ meeting in Lagos on Monday that NPA would provide N1.8 billion while Dangote Group and Flour Mills would provide N2.5 billion.
Mrs Bala Usman was in Apapa today to engage with Freight Forwarders & Truck Owners on the progress made on the repairs of ports access roads.
The Managing Director has inspected the access roads in Apapa ports area.
Mrs Bala Usman said; “The roads are under the purview of the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing but due to their priority to us, we’ve agreed to jointly fund the reconstruction”.
“We have been in several meetings with the ministry and we have come to a conclusion that the ministry and the NPA will jointly fund the construction of the access roads despite the fact that the roads are not under NPA’s purview”, she said.
“The work will kick-start in the next one month with the full reconstruction of Wharf road. It’ll be jointly funded by Dangote & Flour Mills of Nigeria. I feel concerned about the deplorable state of these roads and I communicated at a meeting with the minister that we are willing to fund these roads irrespective of which agency of government is doing it,” she said.
“Effort is being made to get trucks off the roads by taking over the construction of holding bay from the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing through PPP arrangement.” she concluded.
