Lagos — The attention of the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority has been drawn to a story captioned "World Bank Projects Collapse in Lagos" in This Day Newspaper of Monday, November 23, 2009.

First, the story published is riddled with a lot of inaccuracies and at best economical with the truth. Contrary to the intention of the newspaper to portray LAMATA in bad light, the Lagos Urban Transport Project, LUTP, which LAMATA has been implementing in the last six years has been adjudged by the World Bank as its best performing project in Nigeria and indeed in Sub-Saharan Africa. The newspaper displayed its crass ignorance on the cost of the project when it claimed that it was a $200 million credit facility for World Bank-Assisted Road Improvement Scheme. The LUTP 1, a transportation reforming project for the Lagos Metropolis has five major components, for which the World Bank gave a credit of $150 million.

Second, the newspaper gave a list of areas where LAMATA supposedly implemented projects to include "Ijegun, Isolo, Ikotun, Ejigo, Egbeda, Ogba, Isheri, Agege and other key areas which according to it "are in deplorable state." It must be stated and poignantly too that LAMATA's intervention in Ijegun, Isolo, Ogba and Agege were maintenance specific. By the design of the Lagos Urban Transport Project One, LAMATA carries out four types of maintenance. These are routine, periodic, recurrent and rehabilitation. Routine maintenance involves drainage cleaning, vegetation control and road cleaning; recurrent involves patching of potholes under a term contract for specific period say one year for road maintenance while periodic entails overlaying of road periodically, say every five to seven years. Rehabilitation maintenance however involves complete re-building a road from the sub-base to its original position. Most of the interventions are just one off. The intervention at the time were borne out of the exigencies to make roads motorable before LAMATA begins to concentrate on its core responsibilities of implementing a world-class intermodal integrated transportation system for Lagos.

Roads LAMATA worked upon include the 3.4 kilometre Ikotun-Ijegun Road which was successfully rehabilitated and the by all standards is still highly motorable. It was commissioned in 2006. The rehabilitation of the road increased economic activities and commuting in the area, as well as led to a considerable reduction of transport fares while also enhancing the value of property in the Ijegun and in dozens of communities in the area. In Agege, LAMATA implemented a periodic maintenance intervention of the old Lagos-Abeokuta Motor Road and the road is still motorable and serving millions of commuters who ply the road on a daily basis. In Isolo, LAMATA carried out recurrent maintenance on Isolo Road and this involves patching of pot holes to make the road motorable again. LAMATA also carried out the rehabilitation of the Daleko stretch of Isolo Road which at the time had completely given way and was impairing both sellers and buyers access into the market. LAMATA also carried out the complete rehabilitation of Ladipo Road, a road serving a thriving spare parts market. In Ogba, LAMATA rehabilitated Ayo Alabi Road. The road is still as strong as it was completed in April 2007.

Third, the newspaper claimed to have found out that street lights along Ejigbo-Jakande, Egbeda-Akowonjo and Ikotun-Iyana-Ipaja roads never functioned since the facilities were fixed. Again, this is wrong. LAMATA never installed street lights along Ejigbo-Jakande and Egbeda-Akowonjo roads. So if the street lights installed in these areas never functioned, they must not be blamed on LAMATA. The only area where LAMATA fixed street light is along the Iyana-Ipaja-Egbeda-Idimu-Ikotun road. The street lights were fixed as part of the Bus Franchise Scheme whose infrastructure is still under construction. The street lights have not been energised because the entire project needs to be completed before the street lights are on. The Lagos State Government has only recently awarded the contract for the rehabilitation of the Iyana-Ipaja-Egbeda-Idimu-Ikotun road and construction work is expected to commence in January 2010.

Fourth, the newspaper claimed that junctions improvement carried out by LAMATA are in need of repair. Junction improvements are aimed at enhancing their aesthetic presentation through the introduction of road furniture aimed at making them functional for traffic movements. It must be explained that funding for repair works under World Bank are project specific. Funds allocated for a project can neither be increased nor reduced without approval from the Bank. It would interest This Day Newspaper to recall that the WEMPCO-Lateef Jakande Road junction was one of the difficult junctions LAMATA had to intervene. The junction improvement was no more that 100 metres of the about two-kilometre road. There are other junction improvement along this road at Sunday Market, Chemiron and Wempco-Ijaiye Road junction. Before the intervention, several man-hours were lost due to intractable traffic jam and this was attested to by the World Bank at evaluation stages of the junction improvement programme. Shortly after the junction was improved in 2007, vehicular movement and other traffic improved considerably and this is in line with World Bank assertion that junctions must perform effectively. Road users commended LAMATA for a job well done. Mrs. Obi Ezekwesili, World Bank Vice President commended LAMATA on account of the quality of job done.

WEMPCO road as most Lagosians will note is a long stretch of road with no drainage system. As a result, storm and other domestic water from the area find their way to the junction, thus impacting repair work done on the junction. It must be pointed out that asphalt and water are no friends. Just like any roads, junctions are not static. Whatever improvements done on roads and junctions must go through a cycle of accumulating roughness and only constant maintenance can restore the pavement or junctions to their original state. Unfortunately, funding provided for all the different types of maintenance is one-off.

However, it must be pointed that LAMATA as a transportation reforming and regulatory agency has in its six years of existence impacted, positively, the lives of all Lagosians and the World Bank has on account of this awarded it several certificates of recognition as its best performing project in Nigeria.

Today, the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) which LAMATA designed and implemented has moved close to 100 million passengers in less than two years of its operation. In fact on account of the BRT, the prestigious Transport Planning Society in the United Kingdom awarded the Managing Director of LAMATA, Dr. Dayo Mobereola the Transport Planner of the year Award 2009 at a recent event in London. The BRT is said to represent a significant achievement for British transport planning expertise. Besides the BRT, LAMATA is implementing a Bus Franchise Scheme in the Alimosho Area of Lagos, Nigeria biggest local government area. While the infrastructure is being built, 50 of the buses ordered by the operator had arrived and are currently moving more than 40,000 passengers per day between Ikotun-Igando-Iyana-Ipaja axis to Maryland to join the BRT corridor. The figure is projected to rise to more than 150,000 passengers per day when the remaining 100 buses had arrived and the infrastructure for the scheme completed.

Contrary to the impression This Day Newspaper wishes to create, the Lagos Urban Transport Project 1, which LAMATA is implementing is acclaimed as the Best World Bank Project in Nigeria and indeed in Sub-Saharan Africa. For this reason, a number of countries including Japan, South Africa, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana and some British members of the House of Commons have been to LAMATA to understudy the first successful BRT in Africa.

We do hope that This Day newspaper would appreciate the efforts LAMATA has put in to ensure that roads germane to public transportation remain functional all the time particularly against the backdrop of the special nature of Lagos which is home to the nation's industrial set up, busy sea and air ports which necessitate constant movement of haulage vehicles on the road.

Ojelabi wrote from Lagos