Benin-Okene Road: We ‘ll complete most roads by Dec 2019 – FERMA

Director, Federal Highways, South-South, Mr. Charles Okomah Wednesday, expressed optimism that the Benin-Okene road projects would achieve a tremendous progress if not completed by December 2019.

He said when the roads are completed, it will ease transportation and boost the social-economic lives of the people living in the state and by extension increase the nation’s gross domestic products, GDP.

He gave the assurance while expecting some major federal government road projects in Edo State.

“The road project will be up to December 2019. We believe that by that time if they are not completed, we would have achieved tremendous progress”, he said.

Okomah said the contractors have doubled up their pace of work on their respective sites noting that they have been fully mobilized and so have no reason not to have been on ground to do their jobs which they have been commissioned to do.

“So far so good, I am happy you have listened to the contractors, you heard them saying the payment situation has improved that is why work has also improved and also it is the joy of every engineer to see what you planned is being executed.

“So, we are happy that they are all working in all the project sites we have gone to. The work is in progress especially in this dry season and we believe that before the rain comes, we would have achieved a lot in terms of permanent work on the contracts” he said.

He debunked the insinuation that work on the road is slow adding that construction of roads and the building of houses are not the same as there are many factors that must be put into consideration while constructing roads.

“Well, when you say slow, it is a relative term. This is a road; it takes time to construct. Roads are not like buildings whereby in two, three months you are able to complete them, remember we have a lot of challenges, like rains and others. These are things that also delay road projects but from what we are seeing now, I will not say they are slow”, he said.

The federal director added that the ministry has the right to sanction contractors who have failed in delivering up to their job specification provided the default is not as result of the ministry not mobilizing them to site.

“There is a policy in the ministry to sanction any contractors that is default so far that their default is not as result of payment problem. But if any contractors we see payment is adequate and they are not working, of course, the next thing is to terminate his contract and re-award it to other contractor and that has always been the ministry policy so far”, he said.

Giving the breakdown of the percentages of jobs completed by the various contractors handling the road projects, federal comptroller of works, Edo State, Engr. Oke Oweh, said they have all done much in their sites respectively.

According to him: from section 4 which is from Ehor to Benin, handled by RCC, they have done 33.06 percent, for section 3, which is handled by Dantata Asawo, they have done 7.3 percent and for section 2 which is handled by Mother Cat they have done 31.15 percent”.