9th May, 2018
Alhaji Zubairu Abubakar, Assistant Director, Civil Engineering, Kaduna State Ministry of Works on Wednesday says township roads in Zaria and Sabongari Local Government Areas being constructed by the state government would gulp N6.8 billion.
Abubakar made the disclosure in an interview with Journalists while on a physical assessment of the projects.
The crew of Journalists were on project monitoring tour of Zaria and Sabongari local government areas to ascertain the successes of the projects execution.
The assistant director said the entire project covered about 50 kilometers with 30 kilometers in Zaria while Sabogari got a share of 20 kilometers.
He listed the projects in Zaria to include; Kofar Gayan – Gambo Sawaba – Kofar Kuyan Bana road, 1.9 kilometers; Kauran Juli – Kofar Jatau – Mabuga, 2..6 kilometers; Magume – Eid Praying Ground – Kofar Doka, 1.4 kilometers; Kofar Doka- Prison – Gidan Malam Yaro road, 2.8 kilometers; and Wusasa Hospital – Railway Crossing – Kufena College, 2.7 kilometers, among there’s.
Abubakar added that in Sabongari, they have; dualisation of PZ – Rail Crossing – Dogarawa road, 5.3 kilometers; Hanwa Circular road, 2.4 kilometers; Hanwa Western road, 660 meters; Sabongari – Layin Barazana – Dogarawa, 950 meters and Uche, Prince and Victoria roads, 1.4 kilometers among others.
“These are just few of the 50 roads in Zaria and Sabongari local government areas and they are in various stages of completion.
“The challenges we have mostly in Zaria, we have some compensation to be paid because most of these roads needed to be expanded which eventually affect peoples’ residences.
“We have to pay people to vacate the affected areas. We have started paying, for example, we have paid about N379 million as compensation to property owners from Kofar Doka – Prison – Gidan Malam Yaro road.”
On his part, Ziad Karam, the Project Manager, Mothercat Limited, the main contractors, said: “We are handling two major projects in both Zaria and Sabongari local government areas consisting of 30 and 20 kilometers of township roads respectively.
“The project started ending 2016 and payment is made monthly to the contractor, and the percentage of progress largely depends on certain conditions such as compensation issues, revocation issues and many other factors.
“Most of the roads were designed by the consultants handling the project and we have finished and handed over two roads in Sabogari, we are working now on some other roads in both Sabongari and Zaria.
“We are still at the initial stage of the project, we have only completed five kilometers, while in other rads there are some progress recorded because in some roads, we have finished the drainages while in others the earth moving.
“It varies between a road and another, because the major challenge we are facing is compensation. As far as we are concerned, we are working where we can work,” Karam said.
According to him, among the 15 roads to be constructed inside Zaria-city, there are about 12 roads that require 100 per cent compensation.
“So, we cannot go and do anything on these roads pending when the Kaduna State Government pays house and land owners their compensation, which I know that government is working on.
“Already, they have assigned the work to a consultant that took inventory and at the same time they are evaluating and putting value for each property that will be affected pending when the report will finish.
“We are going to start work on Kofar Doka – Gidan Malam road soon because they have finished the payment of compensation to property owners,” he said.