Lagos Govt- the reason we can't build the fourth mainland bridge now.

 Lagos State government, yesterday, said the
proposed Fourth Mainland Bridge may not be
realisable soon because; “With the current plan, 318
buildings will need to be demolished for the bridge to
take-off.” Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget,
Mr. Ben Akabueze and his counterpart from the
ministry of Works and Infrastructure, Dr. Obafemi
Hamzat disclosed these during an inter-ministerial
press briefing on analysis of Year 2014 budget,
stressing that the year’s budget is aimed at eradicating poverty. Hamzat explained that it was difficult for the state
government to embark on the previous alignment for
the construction of the bridge because of its huge
requirements and expenses, adding that the previous
alignment which is eight  kilometers, will cost the
state government N320 billion. According to him, “And to construct a kilometer of
that bridge is about N40 billion, so the issue is that
we also need to factor the cost of demolishing the
318 buildings into the project. Alot of these buildings
are beautiful houses.” He expressed concern that larger per cent of these
buildings do not have genuine building permit. “We need to remember that when motorists make use
of the bridge, they will need an exit route. And this
route will require motorists to drive through a road that
will afford them to link at Ijede in Ikorodu and another
link to the Lagos-Ibadan expressway,” Hamzat said. Speaking on the appropriation for Lagos State
University, LASU, Akabueze said: “We have N9.2
billion that would be spent on LASU in 2014. Out of
the N9.2 billion, N2.6 is for capital expenditure while
N6.6 billion is for recurrent expenditure.” The commissioner added that the state budgeted the
sum of N2.7 billion for Adeniran Ogunsanya College
of Education, AOCOED, Ijanikin, Micheal Otedola
College of Primary Education, MOCOPED; N1.2
billion and Lagos State Polytechnic, LASPOTECH;
N3.6 billion. He said: “LASU is not funded by the tuition fees paid
by the students. It is not possible in today’s world to
get quality tertiary education at N25,000. Many
Nigerians pay more than that to fund their children’s
education at the primary education level. Government
around the world spends more money funding basic education than tertiary education. This is to create
platform for more people to be educated.”

Vanguard