Though funding for works on the Abule-Egba-Toll Gate stretch of the Lagos-Abeokuta expressway is available, residents and motorists still have to wait for respite because of delay in completing procurement process for the project.
The Special Adviser to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Works, Mrs. Aramide Adeyoye, disclosed this to reporters.
For over two years, commuters and motorists have been going through horrible and painful experiences plying the road with many collapsed portions.
Daily, trucks fall down on the road while trying to navigate these portions as deep as pits or gullies, blocking the road completely and making it impassable.
But Adeyoye said funding for reconstruction of the road was available, according to the Minister for Works but it takes time to complete procurement process, which she said “is the major problem.”
According to her: “The Minister of Works has said they are ready to start but you must complete the procurement process.
“You can’t jump it, it is due process, it is one of the things the World Bank has laid as a condition for transparency and openness, so we have to accomplish that as well.”
Adeyoye said the State Government would have gone ahead to fix the road “but there is a limit to what we can do given the extant rules that exist on the Federal side; that is as a state you cannot go into a federal road and when you go you must obtain permission and you may not be reimbursed if you fix the road.
“And if you can’t get reimbursement, you begin to ask yourself if you can afford it based on available resources. So, why not wait for the particular agency that is responsible to fix it?”
She pleaded for patience of residents in the axis and other users of the road, saying “the government knows the cry and we feel it, we do feel the pain of the masses there and that is why we are fixing the little we can fix there”.