CITY NEWS Ondo riverine communities want speedy completion of sand filling project by NDDC

Ilaje Ugbo communities in Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State have appealed to the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC)’s management to speed up completion of the multibillion naira sand filling project in the area.

The communities want the commission to give go ahead to the contractor handling the project to implement their proposal on project.

The affected communities are Zion Ikorigho, Ikorigho, Awoye and Molutehin.

According to a statement signed by High Chief R. O Nana, Primate Afolabi Aboyewa, Jackson Nomiye and Ola Omotehinse, on behalf of the stake-holding communities, the people lamented that the project awarded at billions of naira in 2012 had been abandoned. the sand filling

The people recalled that upon the payment of mobilisation fees to the contractor, the communities were visited many times by a team that conducted soil tests in different locations to determine the quantum of sand availability.

The teams were said to have informed the communities that the quantities of the sand in the tested sites were grossly inadequate to complete the projects.

“In order to avoid the increasing likelihood or abandoning the monumental project for which mobilisation fees had been paid, our communities separately wrote, between 2012 and 2014, to the management of the NDDC, and suggested that the projects be executed with 70 per cent alluvial which is the predominant soil in Ilajeland and 30 per cent sand.

“To the best of our knowledge up till today, there is no reaction from the NDDC to our suggestions.

“The contractor was, and is still of the opinion that if the communities’ suggestion is approved by the management of the NDDC, he would start work on the projects immediately,” they said.

According to the statement, in anticipation of the NDDC’s approval of the suggestion, the contractor moved to the project sites and carried out the necessary bundle-work therein.