Reasons for delay of the 4th Mainland Bridge - Lagos State government

The  government of Lagos State has disclosed reasons for the delay in the construction of the proposed Fourth Mainland Bridge.

During an inter-ministerial press briefing on the analysis of the Year 2014 Budget, the Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Ben Akabueze and Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Dr. Femi Hamzat cited high cost as the reason of delay.

According to Hamzat, the proposed bridge which is expected to be eight kilometers long will cost the state government N320 billion.

Vanguard report below:

According to him, “And to construct a kilometer of that bridge is about N40 billion, so the issue is that we also need to factor the cost of demolishing the 318 buildings into the project. A lot of these buildings are beautiful houses.”
He expressed concern that larger per cent of these buildings do not have genuine building permit.
“We need to remember that when motorists make use of the bridge, they will need an exit route. And this route will require motorists to drive through a road that will afford them to link at Ijede in Ikorodu and another  link to the Lagos-Ibadan expressway,” Hamzat said.
Speaking on the appropriation for Lagos State University, LASU, Akabueze said: “We have N9.2 billion that would be spent on LASU in 2014. Out of the N9.2 billion, N2.6 is for capital expenditure while N6.6 billion is for recurrent expenditure.”
The commissioner added that the state budgeted the sum of N2.7 billion for Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, AOCOED, Ijanikin, Micheal Otedola College of Primary Education, MOCOPED; N1.2 billion and Lagos State Polytechnic, LASPOTECH; N3.6 billion.
He said: “LASU is not funded by the tuition fees paid by the students. It is not possible in today’s world to get quality tertiary education at N25,000. Many Nigerians pay more than that to fund their children’s education at the primary education level. Government around the world spends more money funding basic education than tertiary education. This is to create platform for more people to be educated.”