Youths of Eket Local Government Area under the ageis of Eket five villages has informed the company currently working on the Eket-Oron road that they will not accept anything short of the dualization of the road as accordiung to them that was the original scope and plan for the road and not a bypass as what the company is planning nicodemusly to do. They insisted that the people of Eket are not fools and should not be treated as if they do not know what they want for their community. They insisted that if Gitto Construction company attempts to do anything short from a dualization, that they will be left with no other option but to stand down all instruments and equipments of the construction company.
The youths of the five villages made this known when our reporter went to sample their opinion on the state of the road. They informed our reporter that the contract for the dualization of the road was awarded during the tenure of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. They said, Gitto had set out to do the biddings of what the Government asked them to do but deviated along the line by moving to enrich their pockets against the overall interest of the people of Eket and that of Akwa Ibom state.
In a release signed by Deacon Samuel Etukudo the President and Inyang E. Inyang Secretary of the five villages, they observed that, Government at every level owes her citizens the responsibilities of catering for their welfare, these responsibilities depends on the tier of government, in other words, the responsibility is proportional to the level of government. Based on this premise, President Olusegun Obasanjo, during his administration as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in September, 2006 awarded contract for the dualisation of East-West road, from Warri to Oron via Port-Harcourt and Eket at an initial cost of Twenty-Six Billion Naira (Eket-Oron).
They noted that “as seasoned youths in the 21st century, it interest us to inform the general public of the adversities associated with this contract (section IV; Eket-Oron Road). The work scope involved increasing the existing single carriage way to a dual carriageway of 2x7.3m road pavement, 2.75m outer shoulders and 1.0m inner shoulders with 4m wide median. The work also comprise rehabilitation and improvement of the existing single carriageway by strengthening existing embankment and pavement layers and provision of new asphaltic concrete courses where necessary and the construction of additional lane running parallel to the existing alignment by provision of compacted naturally and excavated laterite material as sub-grade, and sub-bases and the provision of crushed rock as base course.
To this end, N3.9billion being amount for mobilization fee was paid and after extensive enumeration and evaluation, the sum of N2.32billion was paid in September 2009 for compensation in order to aid the dualisation. The mediocre contractor handling the project, Gitto Costruzioni Generali Nig. Ltd, rather than use this fund judiciously, conspired with some miscreants form Eket to “swallow” the amount meant for compensation thereby jeopardising the contract earlier awarded and proposing the construction of by-pass from the Eket-Onna bridge head to James Town Junction. Since the amount meant for compensation have exchanged hands, even when there is no official contract for the proposed by-pass. If the job (construction of Eket-Oron Road) is done to specification, why then do Gitto have to dialog with these miscreants as if they were the owners of this contract”.
Eket youths have since petitioned the anti graft agencies like the ICPC, EFCC who have all promised to wade into the matter, THE INK reporter was reliably informed.
No comments:
Post a Comment