Temporary hard times await commuters in Lagos as the Minister for Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, on Friday has announced that the Third Mainland Bridge will be shut for repairs at the end of the month of August.
Fashola said the Federal Government wants to seize the opportunity of the sallah period where traffic will be light on the bridge due to people travelling out of the state for the festival.
He spoke an Interactive Session with members of the public at City Hall in Lagos Island.
The minister said: “The Third Mainland Bridge will be shut at the end of this month. The specific dates I will get our media people to deal with so that nobody will go and report that it is going to be shut for 27 months (laugh). We are going to shut it first for I think at least three days.
Those days will be in August for inspection, just to be sure that what we saw when we were procuring has not been materially altered.
When it is going to be shut for repairs, we will come back to let the state government and the citizens know. Between now and that period, we expect to have started construction work on Apapa-Oworonsoki road.”
According to him, maintenance and repairs are ongoing on various bridges across the country to keep them in shape.
He said N270 billion were estimated for those bridges.
He admitted that not all the bridges are due for emergency maintenance.
On regular electricity, Fashola said the distribution companies still need to do more to get the power to the end users.
Power generation in the country, he said, has increased from 4000 megawatts to 7000 megawatts.
He explained that government on its part has done all required in ensuring regular power supply across the country.
“Power generation has moved from 4,000mw to 7,000mw. The responsibility of now bringing power to your homes lies now with the Distribution Companies,” he said.
The minister said power plants across the country are being engineered to increase power generation, noting that “Azura will give us 459mw, while Kaduna is bringing 215mw, 2 turbines are already being tested. There’s 240mw in Afam and ready to go. If we add these three, that’s roughly 1,000mw new power generation to the grid.”
On the increase in the tariff by the DisCos, the minister said the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) is the body authorised to deal with the tariff.
Credit: thenationonlineng.net
