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s part of the efforts to ensure successful
implementation of road management policy in Nigeria, the Federal Government is
to adopt the South African model of tolled road management.
Adekunle Oyinloye, Managing Director of The
Infrastructure Bank (TIB), said this in Abuja at the opening ceremony of a
training programme on tolled roads and road management.
Oyinloye said that TIB was collaborating with
the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA) in organising a two-day training
for stakeholders in the road sector.
According to him, South Africa has been in
the road management for the past 20 years and it is good for Nigeria to learn
from South Africa so as not to reinvent the wheel.
Oyinloye said the title of the training:
“Tolled Roads and Road Management: A Sustainable Approach”, was aimed at
bringing the stakeholders in the sector on the same page.
He said this would enable them have a clear
and common understanding of issues and dynamics surrounding financing,
construction, operation and maintenance in the road sector.
“In Nigeria we are trying to establish a
federal road authority that will be in charge of tolled roads and we want to
learn from how they do their things, what they have done right and how they did
it, he said”.
He said the DBSA had been involved in the
funding of roads and TIB was working closely with the DBSA to look at the model
and the financing structure they had used over the years.
Oyinloye said the essence of this was to
replicate the model and adopt it to our local environment.
He said that the Federal Government had made
significant progress in infrastructure development which had been facilitated
by the emergence of Public Private Partnership (PPP).
The managing director said the private sector
had the wherewithal to garner financial resources of the right temperament to
fund development of the road sector which has been globally accepted as the
bedrock of sustained socio-economic growth.
`The missing link is inadequate knowledge and
capacity, largely on the part of public institutions to understand the dynamics
inherent in construction, management and maintenance of this sector”.
According to him, the application of PPP
methodology in the road sector, particularly tolling and management provides
Nigeria with a robust strategy to improve the state of roads and bridges
towards socio-economic growth and development.
Oyinloye said that the pace at which some
federal roads were being rehabilitated, expanded and maintained must be
sustained.
He said that this could only be achieved
through a marriage of convenience between the public and the private sectors.
Tunde Ekunsunmi, the Director of PPP in the
Federal Ministry of Works, said government had decided to come up with a policy
that would encourage private operators to come into road development and
management.
Ekunsunmi said the Federal Government was
committed to ensuring that Nigerian roads were well built and maintained for
the benefit of road users through PPP and tolling.
He said tolling would generate the required
revenue needed to recover cost to the private investor of the construction,
rehabilitation, financing, maintenance and operation of the road and bridge,
and to achieve reasonable returns for that investor
Jacobus Smit, Executive Director, South
African National Roads Agency Ltd (SANRAL) said he came around to give overview
of the success of tolling through PPP in South Africa.
He said the formulation and implementation of
adequate laws were important for maintenance of roads after construction,
adding that road construction should be given adequate budgetary provision.
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