The Federal Government has unveiled plans to charge an average toll fee of N3,000 per vehicle upon the completion of the Lagos-Calabar coastal road project. This revelation was made by Nigeria’s Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, during an interview on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief.
“Let me leave out the infrastructure along the corridor. Let me just concentrate on the tolls and I put 50,000 vehicles as an average passage on these toll points per day,” Umahi said on the breakfast show.
“I put N3,000 as an average cost. N3,000 because the cars could be like N1,500, and the big trucks could be like N5,000,” he said. “So, we put an average”.
“In 15 years, you make back the money,” he said, dismissing calls that the cost budgeted for the road was high.
According to him, there will be security at the toll gates and also some facilities like filling stations.
“At every point of tolling, we also have toll station where we have a kind of relief activities: the restaurants, filling stations, parking lots, and so on and so forth,” Umahi said.
“So, people will now have confidence. In these sections, we intend to put CCTV all through.”
Addressing concerns over the project’s budget, Umahi asserted that the toll revenue would facilitate the recovery of the investment within a 15-year timeframe. He emphasized the inclusion of security measures at the toll gates, alongside amenities such as filling stations, restaurants, parking lots, and CCTV surveillance for enhanced safety and convenience.
Watch the video interview below:
Credit: ChannelsTV