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| House of Assembly |
by: Femi Durojaiye
The Lagos State House of Assembly Thursday grilled for
hours, some members of the executive over the Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge.
The assembly had summoned the Commissioner of Works and
Infrastructure, Mr. Obafemi Hamzat and Special Adviser to the Governor on Public
Private Partnership (PPP), Mr. Ayo Gbeleyi, for clarifications on the tolling
of the bridge. The state Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Ade
Ipaye, also joined the team.
The lawmakers queried the tolling of the bridge, which was
constructed with taxpayers' money, especially
without legislative approval.
Hon. Ibrahim Layode (Badagry I) directed the team to section
10(7) of the PPP Act that stipulates that the approval of the assembly must be
sought before toll collection.
Deputy Speaker, Hon. Kolawole Taiwo, who had to take on the
team, wondered if the plight of residents was taken into consideration in
deciding on tolling the bridge. "We
must be very careful in the way we carry on. We need to be very open. I'm not
convinced by the analysis of Mr. Gbeleyi," Taiwo said.
He stressed that in
the selection process of the tolling company, there ought to have been open
bidding to allow transparency.
According to him,
local investors ought to have been given preference instead of contracting
the toll collection out to a South African company.
"I'm surprise why we need an international partner to
toll our own bridge when we have our own engineers," he said.
However, in defence,
Hamzat lamented the poor state of engineers in the country, adding that
at the initial stage before the construction of the link bridge, the state
government had to wait for six months to train welders to work on the bridge.
He explained that there was no need comparing the tolling
system of the bridge with that of Murtala Muhammed Airport as the state's own was done in line with
international standard.
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