The Minister of Works, David Umahi, has emphasized that concessionaires must fully complete at least one carriageway before initiating toll collection from road users under the Highway Development and Management Initiative (HDMI).
Umahi revealed this during a meeting held with the Public Private Partnership unit of the Federal Ministry of Works and concessionaires from Africa Plus Partners Nigeria Ltd (APPNL) for the Benin-Asaba and Lagos-Abeokuta road corridors in his office on Monday.
The minister outlined 12 parameters to enhance the delivery and management of road infrastructure within the HDMI public-private partnership framework, including the directive permitting tolling only upon the full completion of one carriageway by the concessionaire.
Here are the 12 parameters designed to enhance the delivery and management of road infrastructure under HDMI:
- The design of the project is to be in line with the specifications of the Federal Ministry of Works and investors can only improve upon the design made by the Ministry.
- A reasonable construction period must be agreed upon.
- There shall be no variation on the project.
- 100% of one carriageway must be completed before tolling by concessionaires.
- The business plan must be in line with the socio-economic dynamics.
- Terms of tolling of road projects must be in accordance with the Laws of the Federation, and standard contract conditions must be followed.
- Contingency and variation on Price (VOP) shall be utilized only with the express and written permission of the client.
- Bill of Quantities shall be verified and adopted in line with the prevailing market prices.
- Road count on traffic shall be carried out by the investor and where such data has been provided by the client, it is the duty of the investor to accept or verify and where the investor accepts, it shall be binding on all.
- It shall be the duty of the investor to sensitize the public on the toll programme in every project.
- The client shall have the right to terminate the job of the investor for failure to comply with the time of road project completion.
- Every road construction for highways must be in accordance with the highway standard prescribed by the Laws of the Federation.
Umahi noted that these parameters take into account factors such as inflation, exchange rate fluctuations, and decreased traffic resulting from fuel price hikes.
What you should know
- The Highway Development and Management Initiative (HDMI) programme is an initiative set up to ease the financial burden of road construction projects on the Federal Government.
- The HDMI programme is a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement in the construction, operations and maintenance of highways nationwide.
- The programme is crafted to enable emerging concessionaires to recover their investments through negotiated toll and non-toll revenues, as previously reported by Nairametrics.
