The Federal Government has said the concession of at least 12 roads under the Highway Development Management Initiative (HDMI) will generate over 50,000 direct and 200,000 indirect jobs.
The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, who made the disclosure on Tuesday in Abuja, said the pilot stage of the project would lead to 12 roads, amounting to 1963.24km, given up for Private-public-Partnership arrangement.
He listed the roads as; Benin-Asaba, Abuja-Lokoja, Kano-Katsina, Onitsha-Owerri-Aba, Shagamu-Benin, Abuja-Keffi-Akwanga, Kano-Shuari, Potiskum-Damaturu, Lokoja-Benin, Enugu-Port Harcourt, Ilorin-Jebba, Lagos-Ota-Abeokuta and Lagos-Badagry-Seme.
He stated that the government was executing over 700 different contracts that aggregate to 13, 000 kilometres of roads and bridges but the size of the work has created “an increasing and unsatisfied demand to fund and finance other complimentary services like way bridges, rest houses, and towing vehicles.”
Fashola pointed out that some of these services are best suited for a commercial initiative by the private sector in achieving a massive infrastructure renaissance in the country.
“This is another effort to mobilise revenue capacity, resources and entrepreneurship in the highway sector. The initial capital investment that we foresee is the order of 1.134 trillion and employment potential of 50,000 direct jobs and 200,000 indirect jobs.”
The Permanent Secretary to the ministry, Babangida Hussaini, said the concession is in two parts; Value Added Concession (VAC) and concession and Unbundled Asset Approval (UAA) with the former enabling the operators to manage the entire assets while the latter enables operators to manage only a section of an asset.
