The Federal Government, has said that the 700km Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway would cost N15.36 trillion or N4.39bn per kilometre.
This was disclosed by Umahi during a live appearance on Channels TV on Thursday.
However, this new figure is quite different from the one earlier stated during a live interview on Television Continental on Wednesday.
Umahi in the first interview said, “When you run the figures, you now find out that under his calculation, it is giving you about over N19bn per kilometre. Now if you divide it by the 23 Kilometres that they are doing, it is about 2.225 times a standard superhighway carriageway, which is N11.55bn. Whereas what we are doing, if you divide it, you get N5.167bn, So when you now divide using our 1.067, you get about N4bn/km. If you go back to what he has quoted, you will get over N8bn.
“So using concrete, which should be more expensive because of the kind of terrain we have, and using flexible pavement, which shouldn’t stand the coastal route, you will find out that our cost is N4bn instead of the N8bn claimed by the former vice president.”
However, in a Channels TV interview, he said “Can I give you the tentative project cost? Multiply N4.39bn by five, which are the lane, and then multiply by 700km which would give a total cost of N15.36tn. But this is a tentative figure.
“What is costing a lot of money is the sand filling and I am very proud of this figure and cost and I did a very good job on this project.”
He said the contract had been given on an alternative financing basis and not in a public-private partnership as was commonly claimed.
According to the minister, the Construction Company,, did not do any competitive bidding for the project but debunked the idea that the project didn’t follow due process.
Umahi explained that the Ministry is committed to prudence, promising to reveal the true cost, despite the rising costs of materials in the construction sector due to commodity price inflation and supply chain disruption.
The 700km Lagos-Calabar Coastal road project by the federal government has continued to generate controversies
