Gas pipelines obstruct Apapa-Wharf road repairs

The ongoing rehabilitation work on the Apapa/Wharf road is taking longer than stakeholders had envisaged due to gas pipelines along the project site, our correspondent has learnt from parties handling the job.
The Nigerian Ports Authority had in June signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Dangote Group and Flour Mills for the rehabilitation of the two kilometre road at an estimated cost of N4.3bn.
Although the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, had said that the work might take one year to complete, stakeholders argued that it did not have to take that long because of the ordeal being faced by road users along that axis.
Traffic in and out of Apapa had gone from bad to worse since the rehabilitation work commenced and one section of the road had to be closed.
The line-up of trucks going into Apapa recently stretched from Ijora to Maryland end of Ikorodu Road.
The situation had informed a recent directive by the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, to owners and operators of articulated vehicles/trailers and petroleum tankers to stay away from Lagos for a while.
Ambode said the traffic bottleneck had impacted negatively on the commercial activities of the state.
The Chairman, Seaport Terminal Operators of Nigeria, Dr. Vicky Haastrup, had said that if the road repairs were to last for one year, then it would be a nightmare for road users.
The President, Manufactures Association of Nigeria, Dr. Frank Jacobs, confirmed in a media briefing earlier in the week that most firms had relocated from Apapa because of the difficulty faced by workers in trying to get to their places of work.
The Managing Director, NPA, Ms. Hadiza Usman, while inspecting work done on the road, remarked that the pace of work was slower than expected.
Apart from the pipelines, it was discovered that paucity of funds had also slowed down the pace of work.
Usman added that whatever was needed to increase the pace of work would be made available to the contractors.
She said, “The level of work is unacceptable. I will meet with the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing and the Bureau of Public Procurement to see how the pace of work on the road can be hastened.”