Moses Ofodeme
The Senate Committee on Works has expressed disappointment over poor funding of road projects in the South East, and has called for improved funding of road projects undertaken by the Federal Government in the region.
The Chairman of the committee, Sen. Adamu Aliero made the call on Thursday in Enugu while addressing newsmen after the inspection of some ongoing projects in the state.
Aliero said the committee was impressed by the pace of work in some of the sites but added that more funding was needed to meet the delivery dates of the projects.
He said that the 19 project sites so far inspected by the committee were in dire need of funding.
“If we do not source for the fund, only God knows when these projects will be delivered. If we go by the current model of funding, it will take us more than 10 years to complete these projects,” he said.
On the 72km 9th Mile–Orokam Road being undertaken by Reynolds Construction Company (RCC), the senator expressed excitement that the work was progressing even with limited funding.
He assured the RCC project manager that the committee would ensure that more funds were released by the Federal Ministry of Work to support the project.
“We have seen seriousness even when you are owed. We shall look at the possibility of getting additional funding for you. This is an important road leading to Benue and Northeast,” Aliero said.
Earlier, the Project Manager of RCC, Mr. Harel Vaknin, said that lack of adequate funding was their major challenge on the 9th Mile–Orokam Road.
Vaknin said that the company had the capacity to do more but needed to be motivated.
The project manager said that the company had only received N1.2 billion but had generated a certificate of over N8 billion. Vaknin said that they were owed about N6 billion.
Also, the Federal Controller of Works in Enugu, Mr. Olufemi Oyekanmi commended RCC for the good job they were doing on the project sites.
Oyekanmi said that out of the 58km awarded to RCC on the Enugu axis of the road, they had completed 18km.
He said that the federal government had recently awarded an additional 15 km of the road.