Nigeria's Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) has denied reports that said it granted a new concession for the Lagos - Ibadan Expressway upgrade project without a public tender process.

In November, we informed that local sources revealed Motorway Assets Limited had been selected as the new concessionaire for the Lagos - Ibadan Expressway upgrade PPP project, in substitution of the previous concessionaire was Bi-Courtney Highway Services. Bi-Courtney was the first company to win a concession agreement for the reconstruction and modernization of Nigeria's busiest highway under a design, build, operate and transfer (DBOT) agreement. 

However, Ms Deborah Okafor, Head of Communications of the ICRC, affirmed in the press release that "there has been no new concession granted as required by law and the national policy on Public Private Partnership (PPP) on Lagos- Ibadan Expressway."

The statement explained that "after the termination of the concession granted to Bi-Courtney Highway Services Limited, the Federal Government decided to reconstruct the Lagos-Ibadan expressway as a traditional procurement through Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC)."

However, the government could not wholly finance the project and had secured private financing from a consortium of banks to ensure the speedy completion of the road. Government is bound to repay the financing arrangement (such as interest payments, loan repayment, fees, charges and associated returns on equity investment) either through the annual budgetary system or from revenues accruable to Government if the operations and maintenance of the road is granted as a concession to a private party.