Engr. Etido Inyang is the Special Adviser, Bureau of Technical Matters, Akwa Ibom State. The bureau is saddled with the responsibility of monitoring ongoing projects in the state to ensure strict adherence to quality and timely delivery. In this interview with CORRESPONDENT, Idongesit Ashameri, Inyang speaks on the achievements of the Godswill Akpabio administration, project quality and monitoring in Akwa Ibom State, and the desire by the present administration to complete most of the ongoing projects among other issues. Excerpts.
Inyang
You have been a part of this administration from its inception; can you appraise its achievements in the last seven years?
Yes, it has been a wonderful seven years of fruitfulness, high performances and God’s blessings to Akwa Ibom people through Godswill Akpabio, the Governor of the state. It has been a challenging period for all of us working with him to be able to meet up with his giant strides in infrastructural development. He is a qualitative man that requires high level of performance. Sitting back after seven years to look at how it all evolves you will see that he is a man of vision and he is focused. When he started this administration, his first level of challenge was when he was taken to court for various electioneering issues but he was never deterred. He went straight to awarding contracts and made sure that he was focused on his vision and in less than two years Akwa Ibom state started recording projects of high standards. Another major thing was bringing in the Bureau of Technical Matters and as a habitué; we have various arms of project implementation; we have the FGPC to award the contract, the ministry of works to execute the contract and the Bureau of Technical Matters to see to standards and prescriptions and to ensure timely delivery of projects. This has really been the vane of the success of this administration. No other administration has ever done this. That is why even the federal government had to borrow that aspect of evaluation and monitoring on federal projects. I want to say that all of the projects coming up; from the airport that was like a miracle and in no time brought about economy development of the state, the opening up of road network, with over 2000km of roads including over 300km of federal roads crest crossing the state which has opened the state up for visitors and investors. The infrastructural renaissance in the state has affected the country as a whole; it started like a nucleus in Akwa Ibom when people came in to see the magnitude of projects that were being commissioned and the state governors who were not performing were confronted by their citizens. So many things were written on the pages of newspapers that attracted the sympathy of any state governor, who was not performing, to carry out infrastructural development in their respective states. I want also to state that in his seven years, Akpabio has constructed projects in the state that would have been done in 32 years. Why am I saying this? Projects are completed on time; contractors are forced to complete qualitative projects within two years. Projects that would have been completed in five years are done in two years; those that would have been completed in seven years considering the magnitude are completed in say for years. Look at the stadium, we had a contract of three years to complete the stadium but is done in two years. When we put all these together and then consider the magnitude of roads in the Niger Delta that is full of rain; definitely, it is serious achievement and a thing of pride. At 27, Akwa Ibom has every reason to be jubilant because we are in the world map; we have come to where people talk about us in the committee of states. It was not like that when we came in at 20. The gap is so visible in all aspects of the polity and that is why everybody is struggling to be governor in 2015.
We know that in the cause of your duty, the activities of your bureau must have saved the state some cost; can you talk about this?
I would not want to state specifics but you will agree with me that we are involved with concept and design; from the concept we go to the foundation, the economic value, the execution and the monitoring so all of the finished product have gone through an engineering analysis so you can imagine; if you are not supervising to nip the failure in the bud, you will realize at completion that you have a defected foundation and you will end up having uncompleted product. That is why from structure that we have in Akwa Ibom State, with evaluation and monitoring team we are able to go through all the projects and that is why projects are completed on time, projects are completed qualitatively and of cause; we have saved the state a lot of money because for example, if at the completion of the stadium, FIFA would say you did not meet the standard because you did not go through the real analysis then we would have to repeat the process. But we ensure that we sit down with the contractors and tell them this is what we want; both economically and the physical structure and we design it through with the contractor especially if it is design and build. Where there are excesses; for example stopping improper foundation, we have done that in a couple of places and save government a lot of money.
At what stages of completion are these projects; especially the ones directly under your supervision?
We have gone very far, some are completed and some of them are waiting for Mr. President’s commissioning. That is why some of them like the Abak Bridge, the international stadium and a few others were not commissioned during the state’s anniversary, they are projects for commissioning by Mr. President as wished by the Governor and of cause the president has made a commitment that he is coming to commission them. So many other projects lined up for commissioning just as the Governor has said that he will keep commissioning projects until he leaves office on May 2015 and that is what we are working on.
You have remarkable wealth of experience as far as project management is concerned, how do you bring it to bear when confronted with issues that challenge your managerial ability in the course of relating with construction companies handling various projects in the state?
You don’t have one tool to handle all the issues, you have different tools to handle different issues, we have people with different attitudes, and so we need to know what to do. You must know what scenario you act hostile, scenario to act calm. You have people who are not willing to be adjusted or be serious about their jobs and you need to know which approach and which wisdom to apply to be able to get them to give you maximum result. God has been helping and that is what we have been doing.
Do you foresee any project being left for the next administration for completion?
I don’t foresee that, but even if any project is left, government is a continuum and you know that projects have life span; if a project was awarded one year ago and it has a life span of three years; there is no way it can be completed within one year. That is what a lot of people need to know.
The post Akpabio has revolutinised infrastructure in Akwa Ibom –Inyang appeared first on Daily Independent, Nigerian Newspaper.