Information and Culture Minister Lai Mohammed on Thursday said the loans the Muhammadu Buhari administration took are being judiciously utilised for the development of the country.

The minister said the current massive infrastructure projects across the country are the responses to those who wanted to know what the government was doing with the loans it took.

Mohammed spoke on Thursday during the inspection of the Loko-Oweto Bridge project across River Benue.

He was accompanied by his Works and Housing counterpart, Babatunde Raji Fashola, and the Minister of Special Duties and Inter-Governmental Affairs, Senator George Akume.

The project, which was awarded on November 2, 2011 for N51,612,804,367.37 billion to Raynolds Construction Company (RCC), was stalled for a while due to funding constraints.

It was recently revived with the Sukuk funding under the President Buhari.

On completion, the project will save motorists going to the Southeast and the Southsouth from Abuja about five hours travelling time.

The project is into three parts: East bridges, with the length 2.1 kilometres; West bridges, having 2.1 kilometres, and the road, which is 8.4 kilometres long.

After the inspection tour, Mohammed said: “We are here to inspect Loko-Oweto Bridge. This is part of our campaign promises to showcase to Nigerians precisely what efforts the Buhari administration is making to ensure that it leaves a legacy of infrastructures to Nigerians.

“We would recall that about two weeks ago, we were in Lagos to inspect the Lagos-Ibadan standard railway. We are here today to inspect Loko-Oweto Bridge. I’m proud to say this bridge is 97 per cent completed.

“As you can see, this is the way to answer those naysayers that are saying: what is this government doing with the borrowed money?

“This project, as you can see, is linking northern part of the country to southern part of the country, even though we call it Loko-Oweto Bridge, which is Nasarawa State and Benue State. But it goes further to link to the Southeast down to Southsouth.”

On the economic impact of the project when completed, he said: “As you know, Benue State in particular is an agricultural state, and Nasarawa State as well. Before now, we used to talk about Benue State as the food basket of the nation. So, this bridge is going to become a food storage of the federation because it is going to attract so many people.

“There are three major projects here: Loko-Oweto Bridge here, which is about two millimeters. It is divided into northern bridge and southern bridge. It is also the road connecting both sides.

“The project, Oweto to Markidi end of Benue State, which is 106 kilometres, is already completed, while from Nasarawa to Loko is 76 kilometres, which is not yet completed. But we were assured by the contractors that this bridge will be ready for inauguration by the end of this year.”