By Daniel Abia / Snr Correspondent, P/Harcourt
In its determination to fast track the development of Nigeria’s oil-rich region, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has promised to put more vigour into the monitoring of its projects.
This strategy was made known by the commission’s Managing Director, Barr Bassey Dan-Abia, during his inspection tour of road projects in Akwa Ibom State, insisting that there was need to intensify the efforts of the commission with respect to supervision and inspection to facilitate the speedy completion of ongoing projects in the nine states covered by the NDDC.
The inspection took the NDDC top officials, led by Dan-Abia and the representative of Akwa Ibom State on the board of NDDC, Engr.Etim Inyang (Jnr), to several projects, which included roads in Etinam, Ibiono and Itu local government areas.
Inspecting the 15-kilometre Ikot Isong-Ikot Akpabio-Edemekpo-Ndoneyo Road, Dan-Abia expressed satisfaction with the quality of work on the completed section but regretted that the road was being threatened by erosion. He said that a ravine that has developed at a point along the road was not anticipated and was not factored into the design. He promised that appropriate action would be taken to protect the road from the threatening erosion.
Barr. Bassey Dan-Abia remarked that the Akwa Ibom State Government had raised the bar in terms of quality roads. “The NDDC cannot afford to do anything less. Although we are not competing with the state government, we will push our contractors to march the Akwa Ibom standards,” he said.
According to the Managing Director, “the new NDDC requires that we move out of the office to inspect projects. We cannot stay in the office to develop the Niger Delta. We need to regularly monitor our projects to ensure that our contractors are working according to our specifications. I need to confirm that the papers I sign in the office are true reflections of what is on the ground.” At the 10.1-kilometre Ididep-Ikot Odiong-Ikot Ibiono Road and bridge project, Abia said that by overcoming the challenges of hills and valleys along the road, the NDDC had demonstrated its capacity as an interventionist agency. He added: “The road traverses several communities and Ibiono is one of the three of the largest local government areas in Akwa Ibom State and the road links up to the ever busy Calabar-Itu Road.”
The NDDC team also inspected the 12.4-kilometre Oko Ita-Itu-Mbak Atai-Oku Iboku Road in Itu Local Government Area. The project consultant, Engr. Eyo Peters, said that in spite the challenges of delays in the payment of compensation to some of the property owners along the road, all other things were in place to facilitate the completion of the road in the next four weeks. He praised the communities in the area for cooperating with the contractor even when some of them were still waiting to receive their compensation.
Meanwhile, the Vice Chancellor of the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State, Professor Henry Edeoga, has appealed to the Management of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to speed up action on the 522-bed modern hostel it is building for the students of the university.
The Vice Chancellor, who was speaking on Wednesday when the commission’s top officials came to inspect the hostel, said he was making the appeal because the students of the university were threatening to move into the hostel, which was still receiving finishing touches.
Edeoga said that the university had expected that the hostel would be ready for handover late last year and had, therefore, admitted 6,000 students on the assumption that they would be fully accommodated. “The students have been on my neck over the accommodation problem on campus. They even threatened to pack into the hostel even as the remaining work on the building is going on,” the Vice Chancellor said.
The Vice Chancellor thanked President Goodluck Jonathan for directing the NDDC to urgently complete on-going projects before embarking on new ones, noting that the university hostel projects deserved to be given priority. He also gave kudos to the NDDC Managing Director, Bassey Dan-Abia, for coming personally to supervise the project to facilitate its completion in the shortest possible time.
The NDDC Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer said that the commission placed emphasis on the 19 proto-type hostels it was building in universities across the Niger Delta region. He said that all the agencies of government have a responsibility to ensure that development projects being undertaken by the Federal Government were fully realized.
He said: “The President has directed us to complete all on-going projects and we intend to comply strictly with this directive. Unfortunately, we do not have enough funds to complete all the projects at the same time. So, we need to prioritize in carrying out our mandate.”
Barr. Dan-Abia assured the Vice Chancellor that the contractor would be funded adequately to ensure that the work on the hostel was completed as quickly as possible, noting that the Commission had completed and handed over similar hostels in Imo State University, Federal University of Science and Technology, Owerri, University of Benin and the Delta State University, Abraka.
“The university hostel projects are very dear to us,” the he said.
The Secretary to the Abia State Government, Professor Nkpa Agu Nkpa, commended the NDDC for helping to address the accommodation challenges facing many universities in the Niger Delta. He said that he was directed by the state governor, Theodore Orji, to join the Vice Chancellor in appealing to the NDDC to quicken the pace of work at the university hostel in Umudike as the only university of agriculture in the region.
The NDDC inspection team, led by the Managing Director and other senior management staff, had earlier day visited similar hostel projects at the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, which was virtually ready for commissioning, as well as the new student hostel at the permanent site of the University of Uyo, which is also at an advanced stage.
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