Umahi revealed that the Tinubu administration had opted for reinforced concrete pavement road construction as an alternative to asphalt.Additionally, he revealed that BUA Cement management had committed to reducing cement prices, which could substantially boost future road infrastructure projects.
“I want to commend the previous players…Now the ministry inherited a total of 2,604 projects…Now I think about N4 trillion is being paid. So that leaves a balance of N10 trillion. Now, out of this N10 trillion, we have defined sources that could fund up to N4 trillion. So we have a funding gap of about N6 trillion, which is the position that we are in now.”
He acknowledged potential opposition from contractors but expressed his determination to push for this change. A statement issued by director of press and public relations unit, Blessing Lere-Adams, said the Minister made this known during a meeting with contractors handling projects in the North East Geo-political Zone of Nigeria at the weekend.
The minister stated: “I had recently met with contractors handling road dualization projects and my position on the issue is to take one lane and complete it because of paucity of funds, but with the availability of money they could start the second lane. “We are introducing concrete road technology and some of you are not happy about it. Some are saying it is too expensive but we have to try both and see which is better.