Rehabilitating roads in Nigeria
The suspension of Borini Prono, the contractor charged with rehabilitating the Apapa Port to Mile 2 stretch of the Apapa-Oshodi expressway, an immensely important road artery, raises questions about how Nigeria awards its infrastructure contracts.
Why are projects of such importance given to contactors that fail to deliver? Surely this isn’t the first contract Borini Prono has embarked upon: in 2009 it was awarded a N3.2 billion contract to repair and maintain the Mokwa and Tegina roads in Niger State; in 2012 the company repaired the Ajebandele portion of the Shagamu-Ajebandele-Ore road in Ogun state and currently it is building the trailer park in Tincan Island.
Perhaps, as government is infamous for, they are not paid on time. Or is it a problem of capacity – the inability to muster the finance, people and equipment to simultaneously take on several projects? Borini Prono is a minion compared to Julius Berger and China Civil Engineering Construction Company, the dominant players in Nigeria’s construction industry.
Last year Mike Onolemenen, the Minister of Transport, rightly pinpointed that the Apapa-Oshodi expressway is of immense economic importance to the country and West Africa “because it is a gateway to Apapa and Tincan Island Ports and part of the Trans West African Highway (coastal).” Even more, Lagos is greatly important to the economy of Africa. Of the nine Trans Africa Highways (TAH) that criss-cross Africa three of them have Lagos as a destination or origin. Along coastal West Africa the 4,010km Lagos-Dakar is the artery of the sub-region.
By no stretch of imagination, the importance of the Apapa-Oshodi expressway cannot be overemphasised. Pictures showing the travails and horrors of motorists tell half of the story. A breakdown of what Nigeria imports can tell the other half.
From January to April 2014, petrol worth N192 billion passed through Nigeria’s ports accounting for 12.5 percent of the total import value of N1.5 trillion, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Though close to one-quarter, and increasing, of the bulk of what we import include boilers, machinery and appliances are from Asia, NBS notes that petrol “holds the greatest value of imports”. Goods from other African countries amounted to N73.5 billion 11 percent of which was from Ecowas countries.
Thus it’s easy to understand why this road must be regularly maintained, in order to bear the burden of tankers, trailers, cars and buses that traverse the road, especially in a country where the long dormant network of railways is just being resuscitated.
It’s expected that more roads, rails, airports and seaports are needed to drive Nigeria’s $510 billion economy. McKinsey, a consultancy, reckons that by 2030 infrastructure and real estate investments will come to $1.5 trillion. These infrastructures are critical if Nigeria is to become one of the top 20 economies in 15 years time. McKinsey also cites Nigeria’s strategic location as “an extraordinary advantage for future growth”.
We caution that this extraordinary advantage is at risk if contracts are awarded to incompetent contractors, whether foreign or local. South Africa, for instance, is just as strategically located as Nigeria and has harnessed its position to the mutual benefit of its economy and that of its neighbours. A 2008 report by the World Bank shows that 13,175km of road make up Africa’s key transport corridors, 38 percent (5,000km) of it is in the southern region. What’s even more remarkable is that 100 percent of the roads were said to be in good condition generating a trade density of $27m per km. In the Western region, 72 percent of the 2,050km corridor was in good condition, generating $8.2m per km.