East-West Road: NASS not satisfied with extent of completion of 348km length road… Read details

Nyok|25 November 2018

KAIAMA —The National Assembly is not generally impressed with the extent of completion of the East-West Road Reconstruction Project. This was made known, Friday, when the committee addressed the pressmen at the end of their oversight supervision of sections of the East-West highway and some FG projects in the Niger Delta NEGROIDHAVEN can report authoritatively.

Rt. Hon. Essien Ekpenyong Ayi Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee in company of other members of the Committee while addressing bloggers/journalists on the general assessment of the East-West Road, submitted that while there is general wastage of resources, added that they are not generally impressed with the extent of completion of the construction work.

His words, ‘Our general assessment of the project we’ve seen is there is a lot of waste. huge Resources are sunk for projects and later dumped. For the East-West Road, we are very unimpressed, because that is a project that has ran for over 12 years. For the people of Niger Delta, what any government would have done for them is to complete that road being the area that almost all the resources that is used to sustain this country comes from. I don’t think it is beyond the capacity of the government to complete that road.’ However, the committee admitted that some of the contractors complained about poor funding.

This assessment is a fall out of the oversight supervision by the House of Representatives Committee on Niger Delta which superintends over the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and the Federal Government Amnesty Programme just concluded last week.

Rt. Hon. Ayi Chairman of the House Committee, Wednesday through Friday, led members of the Committee to the four sections of the dualisation/rehabilitation of the construction work beginning from Warri to Kaiama (Section I, 87km) through Kaiama to Port Harcourt (Section II, 101km), Port Harcourt to Eket(Section III, 100km) and Eket to Oron (Section IV, 60km).

On Wednesday the committee visited the 87km length Warri to Kaiama road, where they met with the representatives of the contracting firm handling the project, Messrs. Setraco Nigerian Limited.

Mr. Michelle the representatives of Setraco who disclosed that the Warri-Delta section (I) of the road is just left with the coating of the last layer of asphaltic concrete added that the connecting bridge under construction is almost done except for the expansion joint and the wearing coarse. He said it’s 95 to 99% completed.

Concerning funding for the construction of the the bridge which is estimated at N1.7 billion, the contractor explained that the bridge has been fully funded and thus completed.

The Setraco representative said that, ‘It’s remaining one layer of wearing coarse again. Wearing course plus expansion joint even the drain here as you see inside is done.  Everything is done on this bridge. We need only the bridge’s protection.

‘They’ve paid for this section N1.7 billion of the bridge construction.  The project has been fully implemented at 100%. The contract sum for the Section II is N93 billion. About N63 billion has been released, which is about 70%.

‘One part of it has been completed: but, in some stretches it is at the left hand side, and at some stretches it is at the right hand side. So, the balance of 30% will be use for the either sides as the case may be for the completion. But, all the ten bridges have been completed.’

It was discovered by members of the committee that the road which was originally designed to be a dual carriage road had only a carriage either to the left and/or to the right through the length of the 338km road project at designated sections. Out of N19 billion earmarked for the 2018 Appropriation Law for the construction of the East-West Road, the paltry sum of 500 million only has been released.

Thus Rt. Hon. Ayi said part of their mission in the official assignment is to be guided when the House of Representatives commences sitting on the anticipated 2019 appropriation bill.

Ayi’s words, ‘We want to be guided because very soon the 2019 appropriation bill will be sent to the National Assembly for consideration. We want to be sure that what has been appropriated, a substantial amount has been released before we now look at the 2019 budget. Because it will be foolish that money is appropriated but not released… except they want to tell us that they want to roll over. 

‘But for now, from the letter I saw what has been appropriated for this year was supposed to be released to the contractor, and then they say they are looking for N100 million that will come from the Sovereign Wealth Fund. So, we want to be sure, this will guide us in taking a decision on the 2019 budget.’

Recall that the Warri to Kaiama to Port Harcourt to Eket to Oron road, also known as the East-West road, constitute a major East-West highway of the nation, whose significance to the economy of the nation cannot be over-emphasised. This road links all the states of the Niger-Delta region from Edo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom to Cross River State. According to Vanguard Newspaper, the Warri to Kaiama to Port Harcourt road which is a section of the East-West highway was a State road taken over in 1974/1975 from the then Mid-West State and Rivers State governments. The terrain over which the road traverses is in the heart of the Niger-Delta swamp lands with very poor road building materials. The road has been under construction since 2012 in the Olusegun Obasanjo civilian administration.

Efio-Ita Nyok
Is the Blogger-in-Chief, Editor-in-Chief & Publisher of NEGROIDHAVEN