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MARCH 12, 2007 VOL. 20. NO 22

Abandoned!

**Achike Udenwa**

Barely two months to the expiration of its tenure, a N255.5million road contract awarded by the Imo State Government runs the risk of being abandoned
By Eugenia Okpara, Owerri
As the administration of Governor Achike Udenwa gradually winds up, the only road project awarded by the state government in Onuimo local government area, to show for eight years of democracy, has been abandoned by the contracting firm, 10th April Investment Limited.
The 5.5 kilometre Okohia-Umuna-Okhai-Ikpem Road contract valued at N255,509,391.38 and awarded in April 2006 and which is the only access road to other parts of the local council area, was billed to be completed within 36 weeks but unfortunately 11 months after, only earth work of about two kilometres and a less than one kilometre drainage has been done.
When The Source visited the site, about a 100 metres of earth work has been completed, with no caterpillar or bulldozer on site, except a pay-loader that was loading latrite into tipper to clear the blocked road which the people said has completed cut them off from the rest of humanity.
Some women that were trekking home from a distant market about 10 kilometres away, lamented that the road project rather than be a thing of joy has become a source of grief and nightmare, adding “you can see that we are trekking home because the motorcycle operators that formerly ply this route can no longer come due the blockage by the contractor that we are told is a pure water maker.”
The women appealed to the Imo State Government to change the contract and re-award the project to a more serious person with the fear of God, who will at least finish the earth work before the rainy season that is sure to begin in a few weeks time.
Speaking with The Source, the member representing Onuimo state constituency in the Imo State House of Assembly, Chief Damian Ogu, wondering how and why road projects should be awarded to a plastic manufacturer who has no knowledge of road construction, let alone equipment to move to site. He, therefore, urged the state government to probe the award of the N255 million road contract.
His words: “I want the Imo State Government to set up a high powered judicial panel of enquiry into the abandoned Umuna-Okohia-Okhai-Ikpem road contract. This is because there is nothing on ground to prove that the contractor means to complete the job before the expiration of the Achike Udenwa administration”.
Ogu further disclosed that on several occasions when he confronted the contractor on his apparent inability, or unwillingness to execute the road contract, he had rebuffed him, adding that “on one such occasion, the contractor sought to know what my special interest was on the road”.
Querying where the contractor did the work that earned him over N50 million that he claimed he was being owed by the Imo State Government, Ogu, who is the House Committee Chairman on Project Monitoring lamented that all the communities, including Ikpem in Ehime Mbano local government area, through which the road passes, are completely disappointed and disenchanted with the firm.
“Government cannot afford to waste a staggering N255.5 million on a road contract that is doomed to fail. A serious investigation into this matter would salvage the name of the state government”, the lawmaker said.
Speaking also, the President- General of Umuna Town Union, Tobias Agba, expressed regrets that the road contract was given to an unknown firm with no working tools, let alone work men to complete the job, lamenting, “we have not seen the workers on the site since December last year when they heard that pressmen were visiting the site for you to see them as serious people”.
Lamenting the destruction of economic trees as well as the pulling down of an indigent woman’s house for the road project to go on, Agba opined that they would have been happier if the contracting firm did the job.
Reacting to the snail speed of the work the traditional ruler of Ikpem autonomous community, Eze Edmund Onwumere, said the entire experience is very sad as he is not sure that the road will by completed in the next 10 years.
“It is a sad thing. The entire community is not happy with the contractor. This is the only outlet to the tarred road at Umuna. Food produced in this community cannot be moved to the urban centres where they are needed, while only God knows when the contractor would come back to site”, Eze Onwumere said.
He revealed that his subjects are thus compelled to sell their cassava at the local evening market, because they could not go to Afor Umuna due to unavailability of even motorcycles, as the road had been blocked before the project was abandoned by the contractor.