1st March, 2018
Adejoke Adeleye/Abeokuta
The Federal Government has appealed to Nigerians to bear with it over the slow pace of work in the construction and rehabilitation of roads in Lagos, Ibadan, Benin, Ofosu, Ore, Ajebandele and Sagamu.
Engr. Emmanuel Adeoye, the Director for Federal Highways (Southwest) who made this plea during an inspection of some of the roads asked for more time to complete the roads.
Adeoye said the government has only been able to do only 15.9 percent of the work on Benin-Ofosu-Ore-Ajebandele and Sagamu dual carriage way phase four with N#18 billion in the past four years. The road is being constructed by Reynolds Construction Company (RCC).
He blamed the slow pace of work on the road on insufficient funding by the federal government.
“This reconstruction has been awarded since 23/10/2014 and was expected to be completed by 23/10/2018 this year but due to insufficient funds and debts to the construction company by the Federal Government the work has been delayed till now.
“Between December 2017 and January 2018 we released the sum of N6 billion to the company in order for them to continue and right now the government is keen on finishing the reconstruction and that is why we are on inspection,” he stated.
He promised that the outstanding debt would be settled as soon as possible to allow for smooth sail of activities on the roads.
Giving estimates of the work done so far, the controller of federal roads and in Ogun, Engr. Popoola Olukayode, revealed that the reconstruction of the roads provided employment for 620 Nigerians while local contractors have been able to get contracts to supply materials for the construction.
“Presently, we have 11 expatriates, 620 Nigerian employees, 2000 tons of cement have been used, while an aggregate 6,261 tons of bitumen had been used and about 156 tons of reinforcement had been done”.
“The works suffered slow progress in the past because the federal government was owing the contractor but now all that has been settled as workers are being paid monthly. Contractors are also getting their money. Hopefully work will continue day in day out on the roads,” Olukayode assured.