FG`ll complete inherited projects in spite of fund challenges—Umahi

Minister of Works, Sen. David Umahi said on Thursday in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital, that President Bola Tinubu administration would complete inherited projects across the country in spite of funding challenges.

Umahi said while declaring open the 29th meeting of National Council on Works said the administration was determined to solve the perennial road infrastructure challenge in the country.

The minister said that the administration inherited federal roads in poor conditions which made it difficult for people to freely move.

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“We have segmented the roads state by state, zone by zone, paying more attention to roads on economic routes and those that are 80 per cent completed,” he said.

Umahi said that in spite of the achievements made by the present administration on the road sector, there were still factors militating against realising the set targets on federal roads.

“The high cost of projects is a huge factor and this makes people query the cost of constructing state and federal roads.

“Most of the state roads have 7.3 carriage way with 1.5 shoulder on surface dressing.

“I wish to announce that we have abolished surface dressing as a policy in the ministry because it is a serious cause of failures on our roads,” he said.

He further said that within one or two months of completing such roads, water will start permeating through the surface dressing.

“Asphalt is not good with water and once it gets to the road’s sub base, the asphalt weakens it and the carriage pavement will fail.

“We have also abolished Variation Of Prices (VOP) and seek the enactment of a law to reserve a percentage of a contact’s sum for the project’s maintenance,” he said.

Gov. Francis Nwifuru of Ebonyi thanked the council for convening the meeting in the state, assuring it of the best hospitality by the government and its people.

“This event seeks to address the defects of basic infrastructure in Nigeria and bottlenecks that characterise awards and timely execution of contracts.

“I thank my father and mentor, Umahi for reminding us that works is a national emergency which needs equal attention by government and broad spectrum of the society.

“The minister as a civil and structural engineer is walking on a familiar terrain which enabled him give Ebonyi the best road network in both urban and rural areas,” he said.

He said that leveraging this foundation, his administration had completed over 700kilometre of roads with more on the verge of completion.

Mr Stanley Mbam, the state Commissioner for Works said that improved road infrastructure was cardinal in the people’s charter of needs mantra of the administration.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the theme of the meeting is: “unlocking infrastructural potentials and opportunities as catalyst for sustainable development under the renewed hope agenda”.