Fubara Approves N80.8bn for Fresh Road Projects in Rivers
The Siminalayi Fubara-led Rivers State Government has approved the sum of N80,886,404,836 for the construction of the 33.5km long Elele-Omoku Road project.
The approval of the fund was made yesterday, at the State Executive Council meeting presided by Fubara, alongside his Deputy, Prof Ngozi Odu.
At the meeting, the council approved a 24-month completion period for the project which is expected to traverse three local government areas of the State, including Ikwerre, Emohua and Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni.
Speaking with journalists immediately after the meeting, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Works, Mr Atemea Briggs, said the project will be funded from the savings made from the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the State Government.
Briggs said: "The project starts from Elele to Umudioga, Egbeda and Ubumini to Omoku. The total length of the project is 33.5 kilometres. There is an existing road there which is just 7.3 meters width, but the government wants to ‘dualise’ this road.
"The proposed road width now is 7.8 meters to be asphalted fully with a road shoulder of 2.5 meters width. I will like to mention that along this road, we have several kilometres of low land, wherein to build a road shall require replacement, filling of the ground by more than 3 meters high."
According to Briggs, the contractor can only be achieved through hydraulic sand-filling and using laterite.
He said: "The road is also having a bridge of 99 meters long to be built side-by-side the existing one between Egbeda and Omoku. The cost of the project is N80,886,404,836.45k only. It is awarded to Craneburg Construction Company. The delivery period is 24 months."
On his part, the Commissioner for Information and Communications, Joseph Johnson, reiterated that the 33.5km Elele-Omoku Road project will be funded with savings from the IGR, a payment method that will also be adopted for the phase two of the Trans-Kalabari Road project.
Furthermore, he stated: "Council also will be setting up a five-man committee made up of commissioners of Agriculture, Urban Development, Permanent Secretary of Lands and Surveyor-General of the State to deal with the issues of land grabbing.
"All that will be put together within the week, and council will also provide all the necessary requirements for that committee to conclude its job within record time.
"It is important that I mention that the money for the construction of the 33.5km road is from our savings. This is important because most people will be asking what we are doing with our IGR.
"These are money we will use, accrued from our savings. This approach is what this government will be adopting to fund the phase two of Trans-Kalabari Road project, which will soon commence."
In her clarification, Acting DirectorGeneral of the State Bureau of Public Procurement, Ine Briggs, said that all the road projects being undertaken by the government scaled through due diligence and quality assurance and had been certified for delivery to Rivers people.