Nigerian Govt. to allow individuals build, maintain highways
Private individuals to build, operate or maintain assets on some Nigerian federal highways that are up for concession under its new Highway Development and Management Initiative (HDMI), the country’s government said.
According to a report in one of he national dailies, the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing (FMWH) had received the Outline Business Case Certificate of Compliance to commence procurement process for the concession of 12 federal highways under the HDMI.
Babatunde Fashola, the Minister of Works and Housing, at the FMWH headquarters in Abuja, received the certificate from the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission.
On how the HDMI partnership would be executed, the FMWH stated that there were two categories, Value Added Concession and Unbundled Assets Approvals.
In the Value-Added Concession initiative, road pavement and entire right-of-way would be on concession for development and management by the concessionaire, the ministry said in a document.
“For the Unbundled Assets Approvals initiative, approvals/permits are issued for individual assets on the right-of-way on a build, operate and or maintain basis.”
This implies that individuals would now be permitted to develop and maintain assets on the economically viable federal highways in order to boost the economic activities on the roads.
The aim of both approaches, according to the FMWH is to provide adequate highway services through the development of revenue-generating assets along the highways.
“This is key to maintaining the functionality of the highway as well as engaging and generating wealth for indigenous small and medium enterprises,” it stated.
Furthermore, the HDMI is expected to be anchored on private sector engagement via the concession of economically viable routes to technically and financially capable private companies.
The government said it was determined to ensure that its assets were entrusted into capable hands.
Interested persons, companies and groups were adviced to form consortiums of construction/road maintenance companies, financiers, toll operators, rest house operators, advertising companies, lane marking experts, refuse managers, among others.
The concession of the roads may also signify the return of toll gates as concessionaires will have to recoup their investments.
