Aminu Diko, the Director General of the Infrastructure Concession
Regulatory Commission, has said N12 billion would be required to
complete the Lagos Airport road rehabilitation project.
A
statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday by ICRC’s Head of Communications,
Deborah Okafor, said Diko made the call when he led a management team on
a courtesy visit to the Minister of State for Aviation, Senator Hadi
Sirika.
Diko also said a private investor had indicated interest
in expanding the facility into eight-lane road with flyovers and that
the procurement process was ongoing, after which construction would
begin.
He also called on the ministry to speed up work on the
concession of Nigeria’s four busiest airports – Lagos, Abuja, Port
Harcourt and Kano.
Diko advised on the setting up of a Project Delivery Team and a Steering Committee to be chaired by the minister.
Diko
said: “Public-Private Partnerships are complex and take time to
consummate and so there is need to kick-start the process by quickly
establishing the project team that would see to the engagement of a
transaction adviser to manage the development and procurement stages.
“This
should go hand in hand with the convening of extensive stakeholders’
consultations to ensure the success of the project in view of resistance
to the planned concessions by aviation unions.”
Sirika, in his
response, said government did not have the required funds to revamp the
country’s infrastructure, and so the ministry would continue to
encourage private sector intervention in service provision in the
aviation industry.
He said with a population of over 170 million
and a 38 per cent return on investment, Nigeria ranked among the best
locations to do business.
Sirika said the trend around the world was to use other people’s money for infrastructure development.
He
said there were plans by the ministry to promote the development of
cargo airports to be co-located with existing ones and which would be
maintained by the private sector.
Sirika said that talks were
ongoing with Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited, the concessionaire
of the Murtala Mohammed Airport Terminal 2, with a view to resolving all
pending issues.
