TheCable

With an average daily vehicular traffic of 117,000, Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos has been named the busiest road in the country by the ministry of works.

Babatunde Fashola, the minister of works and housing, made this known on Thursday while addressing the house of representatives committee on works chaired by Ahmed Birchi.

Fashola, who is a trained lawyer and a former governor of Lagos state, said the data provided an estimate of the money that could be made if some major roads are tolled.

“For the first time in 10 years, the Ministry of Works undertook a traffic count nationwide on strategic roads; we completed it in 2017,” he said,

“What you see (in the document) before you are reports; so where you see the average daily traffic (ADT), the top item on the far right is Enugu-Abakaliki and it shows ADT is 20,746 vehicles.

“The projected traffic in 20 years is what is under it and if you look through all those columns from the left, Lagos-Ibadan, Ogere northside the ADT there is reported as 25.1 thousand and projected to rise to 45,000 vehicles.

“This (document) provides more information for those who make the argument that if you toll the roads you get all the money.”

Speaking further, the minister said states will no longer get refunds for fixing federal roads.

“When we came in, we inherited quite a number of such debts from states which repaired Federal roads and asked for refunds. The President directed that we pay all those that were approved by the previous government,” Fashola explained.

“He also directed that states should concentrate on their own roads and that states can only get involved in Federal roads if they are repairing them and not coming to ask for a refund.”

The works minister said the entire N157 billion allocated to his ministry in the proposed 2020 budget is not enough to clear outstanding debts.

According to the minister, the ministry has a debt of N306 billion for completed road projects and N2.93 billion for multilateral-funded projects.