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B N W: Biafra Nigeria World News |
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Why eastern roads remain bad, by Kuta
POLITICAL wrangling coupled with the attitude of contractors handling federal roads have been cited as the cause of the neglect of the federal roads in the south east.
This was stated by the Chairman of Senate Committee on Works, Idris Kuta during courtesy visit to the Abia State Commissioner for Works, Chief Stanley Emeka in Umuahia last Thursday.
He accused political office holders in the zone of placing their personal interest above those of the public, adding it was a pity that people tended to put their individual and group interests above those of the nation.
According to Kuta, "if they allow their personal interests to overshadow public interests, they cannot live in peace."
He assured that "operation 500 roads" was still on course, adding that without existing wrangling and poor attitude of the contractors, there was no reason for the roads in the zone to remain in the state they are now.
He remarked that the zone has representatives and political leaders at the national level to protect their interests.
"If their elected representatives can't do this nobody else can do it for them."
He cited Abia as example, whose indigenes include Senate President Adolphus Wabara, the Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, Senator Chris Adighije, who is also a member of the Senate Committee on Works.
"With all this men one will not believe that the zone should have problems with the maintenance of federal roads," he stressed.
Kuta, therefore, urged political office holders in the zone to place public interest above their personal interest, adding that "this is what is killing the country today".
He noted that the contractors handling the roads were either incompetent or they were playing pranks, adding that his committee decided to undertake on-the-spot assessment instead of second-hand feed backs, which would be twisted with lies, to be able to rationalise the issue objectively.
He, however, assured that those found to have misappropriated funds assigned for the maintenance of federal roads shall be brought to book, and cited the Bende-Ohafia-Arochukwu road in Abia State as an examble.
According to him, that road ought to have taken 24 months, but three years after, the road was yet to be done, despite that the contractor was not being owed.
The works commissioner faulted the performance of both the Federal Ministry of Works and the Federal Emergency Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) in the state, accusing them of neglecting the south east zone.
He queried why federal roads in the zone very often deteriorated easily, a scenario which he attributed to deliberate ploy by the contractors to always be business.
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