Federal Ministry of Works and Housing on Friday assured the public of it’s commitment to complete the remaning part of the East West Road to enhance its economic use.
Mr Folorunso Esan,the Director High Way and Rehabilitation Federal Ministry of Works, disclosed this in Port Harcourt,during the inspection of the road
project handed over to the Ministry by the Niger Delta Affairs Ministry.
The Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs on May, 31 handed over the completion of the East-West road from Section 1-4 to the Ministry of Works and Housing to ensure speedy completion of the project and achieve the objectives of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
Esan stated that the Ministry was on inspection to ascertain the level of the work completed and the ones yet to be completed as they took over the completion of the road project from the Niger Delta Ministry Affairs.
He noted that entire road is about 388km and the Onne Eleme axis is just 15km,and as such cannot be beyond what the ministry can surmount in good time and deliver the whole project,saying that it cannot be an aborted project, rather it will be completed.
Esan explained that there are two section of the road construction of the east west road which one of the sections is from Port Harcourt to Ahoada, section two, sub section one of 47 km which is completed and the marking started.
According to him,the only outstanding section is the upgrading of the Onne junction to Eleme, and it requires additional approval for augmentation and we are seeking for the approval to add more money to the contractor to take care of the upgrading.
“The other 19 km axis of Bayelsa to Mbiama junction road also handled by Cetraco are still part of it and they are going to be done as it is also on documentation, ”he said.
Esan mentioned the drainage as one of the challenges of the Onne Eleme axis due to the blockage of all the water ways to chanel water on that route.
He stated that even if the roads are repaired, it will still spoil due to no drainage, saying that the Ministry will see what it can do about the drainage when it start work on site.
Mr Godwin Ekeh, the Director High Way South South, said that because government is continues that’s the reason for the take over of the project from the Niger Delta Affairs Ministry to the Federal Ministry of Works.
He stated that aim of their inspection is to ascertained if what they saw on handover paper are verifiable on the site and we have seen it that they have completed most of them,
According to Ekeh,some areas with small faults is what we can handle and we have what we call augumentation, which is revised total cost, and when its approved we will come back to site , also have another window of funding called suku,
“All the contractors that handled them before now were given money, so ones we are paid,we believe the contractors will go back on site.
“We have processes to follow and we are on it, we are talking about 100 km in a whole from the Eket Akwa-Ibom axis to Port Harcourt,” he said.
He assured the public that the project would be completed and not abounded.
Engr.Koya Olugbenga, the Controller of Federal Ministry of Works in Rivers State also assured the public to be calm as the road would be completed because efforts are geared toward the completion by the Federal Government.
According to Olugbenga, this road is important to this administration and that is why it’s doing everything possible to achieve it; though funding have been a major issue, but you cannot compare the funding that will be used by Federal Ministry of Works to that spend by the Niger Delta Ministry,” he said.
Olugbenga also assured the public that work will not stop as soon as every process of documentation is through because funding is virtually perfected.
