As part of efforts towards making concession of roads more transparent and competitive, the Federal Government has announced the launch of a procurement portal on March 29, 2021
This was disclosed by the Presidency in a statement on Wednesday, stating that the HDMI would be live on https://hdmi.worksandhousing.gov.ng on March 29.
HDMI is an effort of the FG to mobilize private capacity, resources, and entrepreneurship into the Nigerian highway sector; and convert roads from just social assets into assets of commercial opportunities.
“To ensure competitiveness and to guarantee transparency, a procurement portal has been developed to serve as the interface with the public and manage the HDMI from Procurement to Implementation
“All transactions will be done through this portal. No personal inquiry will be entertained by any official or staff of Federal Ministry of Works and Housing,” FG stated.
Note that according to reports, HDMI is made up of 2 categories namely the Value-added Concessions (VAC) and the Unbundled Assets Approvals (UAA):
UAA provides an opportunity for small businesses to take advantage of the commercial opportunities that are available along the Right-Of-Way;
Under the VAC, the road pavement and entire right of way is concessioned for development and management by the concessionaire.
The VAC will be rolled out in phases. The First Phase will involve twelve roads and cover the 6 geo-political zones Projected Capital Investment of N1,134,690,048,000.76 and employment potentials of over 50,000 direct jobs and 200,000 indirect jobs.
The FG also disclosed that 5.6% of the 35,000 km (1963.24 km) of the Federal road network would be offered for concession.
The roads to be concessioned are BENIN – ASABA (125KM); ABUJA – LOKOJA (193KM); KANO – KATSINA (150KM); ONITSHA – OWERRI – ABA (161KM); SHAGAMU – BENIN (258KM); ABUJA – KEFFI – AKWANGA (122KM); KANO – MAIDUGURI (lot 1 Kano-Shuari 100KM; lot 2 Potiskum-Damaturu 96.24KM) LOKOJA – BENIN (270KM); ENUGU – PORT HARCOURT (200KM); ILORIN – JEBBA (129KM); LAGOS – OTA – ABEOKUTA (80KM); and LAGOS – BADAGRY (79KM).
It would be recalled that earlier this year, the FG received the Outline Business Case Certificate of Compliance for 12 pilot federal highways billed for concession.
