Lamentations of motorists along the Lagos/ Aabeokuta Expressway due to traffic gridlock may soon be over following recent pledge by the construction giant, Julius Berger Construction company that the construction of Sango Otta bridge would be completed come February 2010.

Residents and road users along that route had for some time now suffered untold hardship when construction of the bridge awarded to JB plc in 2006 was abandoned for two years for due to non payment of completed jobs. Then, the famous Sango-otta bridge was converted to cemetery by unknown persons. At least about 25 corpses were allegedly excavated under the bridge clearing for resumption of work.

However, effective usage of the bridge would commence again as the construction giant has assured of completion of the project next February.

The company's Divisional Manager, Mr. Lubasch Detlet gave the assurance when the Minister of Works, Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Hassan Muhammed Lawal visited the site recently to flag off his three day inspection tour of Federal Roads in the South-West geopolitical zone.

Meanwhile, He explained that with the on set of the dry season, work on the project will proceed at a greater speed Engr. Detlet thanked the Minister for setting all their outstanding certificates. Recalling that due to funding problems, work had earlier stalled on the project before the coming on board of Dr, Lawal, the Julius Berger Divisional manager lauded the Minister for promoptly resoling the problem.

Work on the project according to Engr. Detlet has also suffered some setbacks because of the persistent rain.

In his remarks at the site the Minister expressed satisfaction with the contractor and reassured that the Ministry will continue to settle promptly all financial obligations to contractors in keeping with president Umaru Yar'Adua policy and belief that payment must be promptly made for any job done. He reiterated that no contractor's bill s will spend one or two days on the desk or that of any of his directors. Dr. Hassan Lawal urged the contractor to keep faith with his pledge to deliver the completed project in February 2010.

The Minister thanked the Ogun State government for their intervention at the point when the contractor abandoned the site. He said the gesture was commendable and worthy of emulation bye State Government where Federal projects faced similar challenges.

Briefing the minister earlier, the engineer's representative on te project, Engr. Ejike Mgbemena recalled that the project was awarded to the contractor on 2006. He said the bridge consisted of three spans of 22 metres each making a total of 66 metes. He was elated that the contractor had worked remarkably since he returned to site in June 2009. the contract designated as addendum to the dualisation of Ota- Abeokuta road, contract was awarded on 7th March 2006, ion the sum of N9,600,00,00 to Messrs Julius Berger Nigeria Plc.

In related development, the Federal Government has pledged to accord the recognition of the eve busy Lagos Benin road to proity . Dr. Hassan Lawal who was accompanied by the Ondo State Governor Dr, Olusegun Mimiko to inspect progress so far made by Messrs Reynolds Construction (RCC) in the rehabilitation of the deplorable portions along the expressway ran into a traffic gridlock at Ore. For several minutes, the duo assisted by their security personnel battled to ensure free flow of traffic along the road.

Speaking after the restoration of normalcy, the minister who acknowledge the fact that the road has expired and required total reconstruction. However blamed the impatience of motorists as partly responsible for the gridlock. Dr. Lawal who was concluding a three-day inspection of federal government roads under construction in the

South West also sought the patient and understanding of Nigerian since road construction is quite different from ordinary procurement.

If previous government had committed the amount of resources the Yar'Adua administration has committed to road reconstruction, the story would have been different. Nigerians should appreciate the fact that there is a greater different between road construction and contractor of procurement. In other words while you can procure an item within a week or two or at most a month and such items will reach the end user immediately, road contracts are not the same.

If road contracts are awarded, there are many issues that are involve. First and foremost, there are issues of designing issue of planning issues of mobilization to the site issues, of clearing the site and issues of compensation which must be sorted our between the contractor on the one hand, the government on the other and the beneficiaries of such compensation", he said.

The Engr. Representative, Engr. Joseph Nwachukwu gave details of the construction method adopted in the reconstruction work. "We are doing total reconstruction to recover as much lengt as we can have . We are excavating the existing road up to 600 millimeters minimum and we are filling it with hard core and 60 mm of sharp sand incase there is any water movement it will contain it.

After this, we are putting what we call Makkadam specially designed to carry any weight that this road can take. If you look at what was happening at Ore, you will see that volume of traffic on this road is one of the heaviest in Nigeria. So with this 600mm Makkadam, we will apply another 600mm asphaltic core and we hope that by the time we complee this, Nigerians will be very happy with the administration.

We are gong to put about 300mm asphaltic material which is unprecedented in the history of this country. This is what we are doing to recover theis ropad, he said.