The NDDC is claiming to be the organisation that is handling the East/West Road, we would like you to be categorical. Who is in charge of the East/West Road, is it your ministry, or the NDDC, or the ministry of Niger Delta? 
A lot of concerns have been raised on the East/West Road. First of all, let me say here that the East/West Road is a federal road; it is one of the major arterial roads in this country that connects the oil producing towns and cities to other parts of Nigeria. In fact it is part of the arterial road A 21. During the regime of President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2006 under the presidential initiative projects, this is one of the projects that were awarded alongside the Abuja/Lokoja Road, Kano/Maiduguri Road, and Sagamu/Ore/Benin Road that came later. But however, during the administration of late President Umaru Yar’Adua, this particular road, the East/West Road was taken to the ministry of Niger Delta based on the directives of Mr. President. So as we speak, this particular road, the East/West Road is not being handled by the works ministry, so I do not really have the facts on what the challenges are but as a member of the federal executive council, I do know that the major challenge is not unrelated to inadequate funding for the road. But on the technical challenges, I am not in a position to give you that because my ministry is not supervising the implementation of this particular road project.
 
Anyone who drives through Otukpo/Otukpa Road would wonder whether the people of that area are not part of those that should benefit from the good work of your ministry. What is actually the problem with this Otukpo/Otukpa Road or is it a state road? 
Otukpo/Otukpa Road is a federal road, there is an ongoing contract on this road, and I think the contractor handling this road is CGC and in the 2011 budget, the road was provided for reasonably but unfortunately the contractor did not make much progress, because if you do not have a valid certificate you will not be paid. But I got concerned, I had invited this particular contractor to my office to find out what the challenges were and he did mention that they had an issue with aggregates, in order words, they had problem accessing aggregate for the road at a time and they were not able to deal with the problem until late November and in December they assured me that work was going to be accelerated on that particular project, I know about the project because it was brought to my attention by a number of persons including the honorable member representing that  part of the country.
With the drop in the funding for Subsidy Reinvestment Empowerment, SURE Programme, would this administration deliver on the second Niger Bridge project? 
There is no problem on the issue of second Niger Bridge and the funding by SURE programme. Right from the beginning, we were very clear as to where the fund was going to come from. The SURE programme funding was only going to be to some extent of the counterpart aspect of the funding that would be required for that project. That project as we speak is estimated to cost about N100 billion and the private sector concessionaire is suppose to bring N70 billion on board while the federal government component would just be N30 billion and what we are suppose to be paid in the first year has been well worked out by my ministry and that much money is being provided through the SURE programme still because the federal government counterpart funding of N30 billion is spread across three years if you like on the average of N10 billion each year and we have made adequate arrangements for that. Like I said, the selection of concessionaire is ongoing and I can assure you from what I have seen in the papers, this is a concession that would succeed to the admiration of Nigerians. 
 
You earlier talked on the plans of the government to link the six geopolitical zones in the country with dual carriage ways; we would want to know where and how the funding would be sourced and the time lag?
If you listened to me very well, 80 percent of the roads that would link the six geopolitical zones are already ongoing. In other words, let us start from Maiduguri, Maiduguri up to Kano, Kano up to Kaduna, Kaduna to Abuja, Abuja to Lokoja, Lokoja to Benin. Between Lokoja to Benin is the one we plan to start early this year. But the other one from Benin to Sagamu, Ibadan to Lagos is already there, we are rehabilitating them. The one from Benin to East/West Road, from Benin to Asaba, Onitsha to Owerri, Onitsha to Enugu, Enugu to Port Harcourt, what we are doing is that we are trying to focus on this major link roads and put them in good and motorable condition and by the time we are able to do that and do the link between Lokoja to Benin then we would have been able to link the six geopolitical zones. So in summary, we are just focusing on this area, most of which are already ongoing and we want to drive all the ongoing projects under this programme to fruition. For instance, those four sections of the dualisation project that I listed earlier, which is being funded through the SURE programme, we can assure you that we plan to complete the Abuja to Lokoja Road in two year, the Sagamu/Ore/Benin Road in two years. The Onitsha/Enugu Road in two years but the one from Enugu to Port Harcourt since it is largely that we have new sections there perhaps that may take up to three years. So, we have a time line for them, and that is why Mr. President in his wisdom has decided to select these key roads so that we can drive them to completion, we should have a completion time frame. But the only thing like you have noted is the subsidy removal policy which in a way was affected by the level of deregulation that we have been able to achieve in this country, it only means that we would have to reprioritise the programme that would be implemented under the SURE but I am pleased to note that key roads, which we have listed, have not been affected by that reduction because government itself is aware that these are very visible signs that Nigerians can see that you are actually putting this savings to good use, so because of that government in its wisdom has retained the completion of these roads as part of the cardinal projects and programmes they would fund using the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme.
 
The Ibadan/Ilorin Road project is taking decades to complete. Is your ministry facing any challenge on this project? 
The Ibadan/Ilorin expressway project incidentally is one of our ongoing projects and since I took over as minister of works, we have also visited that project, that project is going on well, you have the RCC handling a session of it and of course, you have Kopek, the project is ongoing, we have update that the project would be brought to a completion sooner than we expect. You are aware that the section PW is working on, they have virtually rounded off their section and RCC’s work as we speak is in top gear, and we believe that the part from Ibadan/Ilorin would be fully dualised given the kind of budgetary support we require, if we get that kind of support in two years, we would be out of that site.
 
Another road on that axis is Kabba/Ilorin Road, it is so deplorable that motorists wondered when they would have respite. Is their hope in sight? 
Yes, am aware of the state of Kabba/Ilorin road, this is one road that is in bad shape. Unfortunately, we do not have a subsisting contract on this road and government’s focus right now is on completing ongoing contracts. However, I am aware that this road was last maintained under the Petroleum Trust Fund. At a time when I served as the executive director in charge of project management of the Petroleum Trust Fund and one of our contractors then, Boroniel Prono handled the maintenance and rehabilitation work on this road. The state of the road now requires major rehabilitation work, the governor of Kwara State visited me in my office and it was one of the things he also mentioned to me, Senator Smart Adeyemi had written me a number of times concerning this road, the action I have taken is that I have directed FERMA to take up the rehabilitation of this road and the ministry is going to cooperate with FERMA under our special intervention fund to ensure that this road is rehabilitated. We have given our word on it to the senator and the governor and we are also trying to see if we can also collaborate with major private sector firms operating on this axis who also need this road for the distribution of their products, we had preliminary discussion with Aliko Dangote who has a major factory in this area, that discussion is ongoing, if it comes to fruition, it means we would be collaborating to ensure that this road is brought to a quick completion. 
 
What is the state of Sagamu/Ore/Benin Road and when would travellers on that road heave a sigh of relief? 
Unknown to many Nigerians we have never really claimed that the Ondo axis of the Sagamu/Ore/Benin Road has been completed. As we speak, we have two sections of the road which we are trying to procure under the Subsidy Reinvestment Empowerment Programme and those two sections fall within this Ondo area that you talked about and that procurement process have begun and I believe when those two remaining sections are procured this year under the SURE programme, this issue would have been tackle headlong.
 
Is this administration giving it a thought to introduce weigh bridges on the nation’s highways, to reduce and control over loading on our road?
Yes, the ministry under my watch last year thought towards that direction, we gave out the procurement of a number of weigh bridges and for dedicated roads across the country, we intend to deploy those weigh bridges and deployed them as soon the roads are fully rehabilitated, this is work in progress in that direction.
 
What is the level of collaboration between federal and state governments in the area of road reconstruction and rehabilitation and would the state be reimbursed?
We are very clear on the way we collaborate with state governments but I want to use this opportunity to say in the first instance that most of the so called federal roads in most of these states were roads the state government willingly handed over to the federal government at a point in Nigeria’s history and some of them are not gazetted; so any road that is not gazetted under the Federal Highways Act of 1973 for all intent and purposes as far as reimbursement is concerned is not a federal road because federal roads are roads that are well listed in the gazette and articulated with federal route number. Any road that does not have a federal route number is not a federal road. But we are collaborating with the state and encouraging state governments to follow guidelines that have been well laid out and approved by the federal executive council to guide collaboration between the federal ministry of works and the state governments on the repairs of those roads. Simple guidelines, first and foremost the road you want to intervene must be a federal road. In other words, it must have a federal route number, it must be gazetted and secondly as a state government you need the express permission of the Mr. President before you interfere on a federal road, you have to write to the federal ministry of works. If we receive such a letter we would write a memo to Mr. President on it. It is only after the president’s approval which we would convey to the government in question that the state government would now be free to intervene on the road and if you have to intervene, you are also required to fulfill some other conditions. In other words, the procurement must be open; it must be in line with the procurement law of the federal government; that means all the BPP conditions must be fulfilled. For instance you must publish it in about two or three national newspapers; it must be procured through open tendering so that you give Nigerians equal opportunity to bid for it. Then it would be analysed, the tender report would be written and in analysing the tender, the officials of the federal ministry of works must be involved in collaboration with the state ministry of works officials. When the two teams now come up with tender report, that report must be forwarded to the federal ministry of works and that report must be approved by the state executive council. Once the state executive council approves it and a draft contract and all that is forwarded to the federal ministry of works, the ministry would now forward it to the Bureau of Public Procurement. And once given a letter of no objection then we send it back to the state. They can now award the contract. In administering that contract during the real construction, officials of the federal ministry of works via our controllers in the respective states must be involved in the supervision of the work and the issuance of the certificate of payment. So, these are the conditions and once they fulfill it, they would get reimbursement. In fact a number of states have actually been reimbursed. Those who went through these processes would definitely get their reimbursement. As we speak, consequent on the claims by state government totalling about N350 billion, last week I inaugurated verification committee to verify those claims. So the verification exercise is ongoing and I know that in about 60 days I would be receiving the report on the exercise. It is only after then that I would now be in a position to say these are the states that are entitled to reimbursement.
 
What are the damages that corruption is doing to your action plan in the ministry of works?
Well, corruption is a cankerworm that does no organisation or country any good. And as an administration, we are committed to fighting the scourge, particularly in terms of project execution and supervision. And part of the things we have done in order to checkmate corruption particularly during the execution of projects is to ensure that we now have check and balances in the system of project administration. First and foremost I told you about the new department of material to technique and quality control that has been set up by my ministry under my watch, that department now has a responsibility for quality assurance of the work of contractors. In other words they are responsible, no longer the engineer’s representative on the project or the state controller, they are now responsible for going to each project site and testing and verifying the compliance of the work with the specifications. If the thickness of the asphalt is saying 150 MM, it is the responsibility of the quality officer there to say so because I have also said that with effect from January no certificate would be paid without the quality control assurance as to the compliance of that contractors or not in terms of project delivery, we have done that. Beyond that like I have said we also have independent zonal monitoring teams that tour projects across the zone, from state to state and their independent report is also geared towards eliminating corrupt practices in project administration at least as far as the federal ministry of works is concerned. And I intend to really use their input in administering these projects and for your information, no contractor gets paid if I as the minister of works do not want them to get paid and if I have enough grounds to refuse payment I can always exercise that discretion.

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