The Minister of Works, Sen. David Umahi, has expressed dissatisfaction with the facilities at the toll plazas and service stations on the Keffi-Lafia-Makurdi highway.
The minister, who inspected works on the toll plaza at kilometre 32 on the road from Keffi, said that there was no room for shoddy job under his watch.
He charged the company handling the project, China Harbour Engineering Company Nigeria Limited, to do the same quality of job done in China in Nigeria.
He pointed out that the quality of materials used for the construction of the service station and roof of the tolling plazas were substandard.
” Under my watch, I will not accept things like these. The best you can do is to redo it using Alumco burnt on the roof. This is not what we deserve in this country.
” I demand for the design of the service station, part of your responsibility is to provide standard service stations, provide solar light.
” I will work out the security aspect of it. In each of the service stations, we are going to have security people that will control security on the road through cameras and there would be a response time of not more than 10 minutes to any distress call,” he said.
He charged the company to immediately provide a stand-alone 20 KVA solar power system to power the tolling machines as well as stand-alone solar lights for the area.
Umahi maintained that the company must show respect to Nigeria by showing commitment in terms of facilities for the tolling on the road.
“It’s not just to put a ‘bacha’ (makeshifts) for us and say you are ready for tolling; no you are not ready.
“We need service stations where our people can drive in, drink water, change their tyres, with security station so that if there is any problem, our security agent can respond immediately.
“If I come and see this, I will order for its demolition, this is unacceptable,” he added.
Speaking on behalf of the company, Mr Liu Zhaojun, noted the observations of the minister and promised that they would abide by the directive to complete the project.
He said that they intend to commence tolling on the road by April this year.
In his remarks, Mr Idah Daikwo, Federal Controller Work, Nasarawa State, gave assurances that the ministry would monitor to ensure that the company complete the toll plazas and service stations to the desired standard before April. (NAN).