FG Contracts Lagos -Calabar Coastal Highway To Hitech Construction Company
By Alice Etuka, Abuja
The Federal Ministry of Works has signed the Engineering, Procurement, Construction plus Finance (EPC+F) contract component of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway Project with Messrs Hitech Construction Company Nig. Ltd.
Special Adviser to the Minister of Works, Barr. Orji Uchenna disclosed this in a statement on Tuesday.
Uchenna said the signing ceremony had in attendance the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Works, Engr. O. O. Adebiyi, the Director of Legal Services, Barr. Clement Assam, the Acting Director Road Design, Engr. Musa Saidu, the Managing Director of Hitech Construction Ltd, Dany Abboud and his team.
He added that the Minister of Works, Engr. David Umahi expressed deep gratitude to God Almighty for the initiative of the legacy project which was the dream of President Bola Tinubu years back.
He assured that with the capacity of the contractor and the manifest political will of Mr. President, the 750km Lagos – Calabar Coastal Highway project would be fully achieved by the power of God before the end of the 2nd tenure of Mr. President.
He said, “We’re very grateful to God Almighty for this project that Mr. President initiated. A dream of about 27 years back is made flesh before us, and we are fortunate to be part of this wonderful, evolving, mega project, biggest ever known in Africa- the Lagos-Calabar Superhighway. So today, we have signed the EPC+F contract, which is Engineering, Procurement, Construction plus Finance.”
The Minister further spoke on the importance of the agreement, “Now the beauty of it is that the F component of EPC + F is what is being fulfilled today. So, by signing this EPC + F contract, it is paving the way for the contractor through the Federal Ministry of Finance to bring in foreign investment into this project.
“The federal government commitment is 30% counterpart funding, which the President is fulfilling, and now there is a foreign component of the project, that is, foreign financing that will come in, it’s going to fast track the performance of this project, and I’m happy with the performance of Hitech, with the quality of work they are doing and the speed of work. If not for settlement of a very high fee, we would have been able to commission the entire first section within one year of the project, even though it is for 36 months”, he said.
While handing over the signed agreement to the Minister, the Permanent Secretary who signed the agreement on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Works said that the agreement was signed in accordance with the law.
