Commuters plying the Four-kilometre Apapa -Wharf Road in Lagos State would soon begin to heave a sigh of relief following the completion of the ongoing reconstruction of its Section 1 .
A senior engineer with AG Dangote, the construction company handling the project confirmed the development to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on condition of anonymity.
He said that workers on site were working on 24-hour daily on the four sections of the Ijora / CMS road bound carriageway.
The engineer explained that two shifts each were currently working during the day and night to speed up the completion of the project within the stipulated period.
The source also said the that issues of traffic management, presence of gas pipes and other public utilities along the road’s Right of Way (RoW) delayed the project’s execution.
The engineer commended the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing for expediting actions that led to their removal.
The engineer added that the project was divided into four sections and that the speed of work on the completion of other sections would depend on how fast the utilities on the RoW there could be relocated.
“We are working on all sections on the outbound.
“Section1 is completed, we are only doing some snags before we open it to light traffic.
“We are planning to start concrete very soon on Section 2 which entail working on both the sub-base and base. We have finished the sub-grade.
“We are working 24 hours daily, the progress of work has increased tremendously, we have day and night shifts.
“We have escorts that help us to move materials to site but traffic is still affecting us,’’ the engineer said.
The source added that the construction firm had started installing the drains on Section 3.
The source added that the officials from the Federal Ministry of Works had begun to expose the gas pipes on Section 4 so that the whole outbound lane would be completed.
A NAN correspondent who visited the project on Tuesday reports that earth moving equipment were being used to spread and compact sand cement on Section 2 of the project which is between SUMEC Plaza and the front of Flour Mills of Nigeria.
Also, workmen were seen using movable cranes and some rolling machines to compact construction materials.
The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, had on June 17 signed a N4.34 billion Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with AG Dangote Construction Company Ltd. and some other stakeholders for the reconstruction of the four-kilometre Apapa-Wharf Road.
The project is being funded by AG Dangote Construction Company Ltd, the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and Flour Mills of Nigeria. (NAN)