Anambra State Government says it will not extend time for completion of any road project, ANAMBRAPEOPLE reports.
The Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Engineer Ifeanyi Okoma, stated this at his office in Awka, during a critical meeting between state government and key stakeholders in road construction in the state.
The meeting was attended by all the contractors and consultants handling all the road projects awarded last year by Governor Chukwuma Soludo including the Managing Director, Anambra State Material Testing Laboratory, Engineer Ebosie Ezeoke, Chief Executive Officer, Bureau of Public Procurement, BPP, Architect Okey Ezeobi, Chief of Staff to the Governor, Mr. Ernest Ezeajughi, the Director, Strategy Execution and Evaluation Agency, Mr. Emma Onyiliofor and members of Project Monitoring Office, PMO, office of the governor.
Addressing the group, Engineer Okoma noted that Governor Soludo has so far, awarded about two hundred and fifty-six point one-five kilometers of road spanning about thirty-seven contracts going on simultaneously across the state.
According to Engineer Okoma, all the contractors have been mobilized with fifty or thirty percent of the contract sum, which he noted is the reason they should be up and doing as according to him road infrastructure is paramount in the agenda of the governor.
He disclosed that government has spent over forty billion naira out of the over one hundred and sixty billion naira sum of the contract fund and cannot accept substandard jobs, emphasizing that no state government in Nigeria has paid such an amount for road contract within one year in office.
Also speaking, Mr. Ezeajughi, charged the consultants and contractors on specifications and quality assurance as according to him, Governor Soludo accepts no excuse for failure noting that more roads will be awarded this year but only to those, who did good jobs.
On his part, Architect Ezeobi, harped on time lines and completion schedule saying that the governor is fastidious about timing, and does not joke with paying the contractors and requested that all the five bodies involved in monitoring, must be available any day they will conduct measurement to ensure quality.
Others, including Engineer Ezeoke and Mr. Onyiliofor, stressed the need for material testing especially borrow pit materials, compaction, asphalt and bitumen among others, noting that any material that exceeds the required measurement would be rejected.
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