Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola (SAN), has said that Paucity of fund and terrains are among the challenges encountered on the 42km Port Harcourt-Enugu road project,
He spoke while inspecting the Imo River to Eleme Junction of the road on Thursday.
Fashola said unless health experts advised otherwise, the work would continue despite the coronavirus pandemic.
The minister said the aim is to build wider and safer roads.
“As the road that links all of the five states of the Southeast to the Southsouth through Port Harcourt, essentially we are building on water, so it’s a very challenging environment to build on.
“We want to build a bigger, wider and safer road here. Our design is to deliver eight lanes from four. Buildings will have to go. These are the challenges.
“The people of Aba and Port Harcourt must appreciate why this road is taking some time to build.
“There is a lot of sand-filling going on. The road is dug up to well over two meters. All the bad soil is being removed across the entire length in eight places.
“That’s the logistics of the work really – each lane times eight. That’s a lot of dredging work. This road won’t be finished this year without a doubt.
“What we are trying to achieve is to make the year’s rainy season better than last year in terms of travelling experience.
“The contractor tried to do all eight lanes at once. That’s not giving relief,” Fashola said.
According to him, the contractor would concentrate on a lane at a time.
“We will divide the road into two lanes each for incoming and outward bound traffic.
“If people have two uninterrupted lanes, it may be slow but it will move so we can concentrate on finishing. This is our plan for the worst here and we hope for the best.”
The Controller of Works, Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, Rivers State, Johnson Fadire, who led Fashola to the site, said the original road constructed in the 70s without drains caved in over the years.
He said: “Out of the seven sections of the road, we have paid compensation on five sections but we have not paid for two.
“For the last two kilometres, we cannot go there now because we have not paid and that is where most demolitions were made.”
Also yesterday, the Senate Committee on Works gave Nigercat Construction Company one week to return to its project site on the Enugu-Onitsha Expressway or get the contract revoked.
Chairman of the committee, Senator Adamu Aliero disclosed this on in Enugu while inspecting ongoing rehabilitation work on the road.
Aliero said that it was wrong for the company to abandon the job several years after it won the bid to rehabilitate the road.
He said the committee was not satisfied with the pace of work by the company handling 22km of the road on the Enugu axis.
The senator rated the work as the most laid-back of the 18 projects they had inspected.
“We are surprised that you have not done anything after collecting mobilisation fee. We find you to be technically incompetent.
“If you fail to return to the site within one week, we shall recommend to the ministry to revoke the contract,” the Senator said.
