Umahi Commends Progress Of Coastal Highway Construction, Knocks Social Media Critics

OLORUNDARE ENIMOLA, Lagos

Senator David Umahi, the Minister of Works and Housing has commended the level of work on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, describing it as impressive, while saluting Hitech for their professionalism, commitment and going beyond expectations to stem unforeseen challenges thrown up by heavy rains and ocean surge.

Umahi gave the commendation on Monday during inspection tour to ascertain the level of progress made by the contractor handling the work, while expressing his satisfaction, he said, “I am very happy with what HITECH is doing. No one else would have done this, because I have experience with contractors, there are so many unwritten things that have been done here for the stability of the job and for it to go ahead.”

He added that, it takes people that are
committed to development of the country, who will not put profit first will do what Hitech contracting firm is doing for this legacy project.

In his words, “I commend HITECH very, very highly, they are very courageous, as you can see from every section of the construction work. You see the sophisticated equipment deployed by HIitech, so I commend them very highly and particularly for the quality of work, any of the certificate that comes will be approved without hesitation, because we’ve been here and acknowledged the great work being done.”

Umahi also berated online critics, who according to him speak out of ignorance and deliberately being malicious of the ongoing work, stressing that when a project is ongoing, there are bound to be some damages in certain places but it cannot be on the concrete, it will just be on the finished section like the shoulders.

Saying, “some of the people say there’s no drainage. I don’t know why they take so much delight in publishing false
information, which is part of cybercrime that must be condemned and addressing false information.We have 750 kilometers of underground drainage by two, which is 1,500 kilometers of
underground drainage. And you can see the pipes. You see it for yourselves as pressmen.”

In respect to the repair of he Third Mainland Bridge, Umahi said no final cost has been determined, stating that
the figures making rounds in the media were only preliminary estimates from Julius Berger alone , which were never presented to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) for approval.

“What we presented to Council was not a request for N3.6 trillion or N3.8 trillion. We merely said this is what Julius Berger is saying, but we do not trust these figures because one consultant cannot give a reliable estimate. That was why we sought approval to invite a minimum of seven global contractors to carry out their own investigations, designs and proposals. No approval has been given for any figure,” He said.

Similarly, he disclosed that Julius Berger had also suggested that rehabilitating Carter Bridge for another 50 years would cost about N389 billion, while building a new cable-stayed bridge as replacement would cost around N359 billion, explaining that these figures were extrapolated to the Third Mainland Bridge due to the similarity of structural defects, but stressed that they were only indicative and not binding.

The minister explained that investigations dating back to 2013 and 2019 by past administration had revealed chlorination and rusting of the piles, caused by prolonged exposure to saltwater and worsened by illegal sand mining, which he said was weakening the foundations of both Carter and Third Mainland Bridges, reducing their depth of penetration in some sections by over 60 per cent.