MDGs Committee Warns Contractors Against Poor Quality Jobs

The Implementation Committee of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs in Anambra, has warned contractors handling water projects in the state, to execute quality jobs or risk their contracts being revoked.  

   Prof. Stella Okunna, the Chairperson of the committee, gave the warning at a media forum in Awka on Monday. 

Okunna said the warning became necessary following complaints that some of the boreholes sank in some rural communities by the contractors, were not functioning. 

She noted that the development had slowed down government’s effort to provide quality water to the people. 

“Only interim measures are being put in place as boreholes already sank are not the ideal type.

“We are stepping up the acquisition of solar facilities, a new technology and more other sustainable water works,” she said.   

The Chairman said the state government had acquired borehole camera, a device meant for reading the depth and quality of water in a borehole, to ensure quantity and quality of water for the people.

“The contractors who did them, we have their fee with us and we are not paying them, because we think we have begged and warned them enough on the reasons why we will revoke their contracts.

“From now on, there would be a drastic change in the quality of job done, because we will monitor better, implement better, supervise better and punish in a more drastic manner,” she said.  

Okunna, who noted that the focus of MDG’s in 2010 was on youth empowerment, water resources and health, said the Gov. Peter Obi led-government hoped to meet the 2014 deadline for all the MDG programmes in the state.  “The governor is already working to achieve this through the State’s Integrated Development Strategy (ANIDS) and will ensure that the MDGs are achieved before the expiration of his tenure in 2014,” she said.

 Okunna announced that five water schemes would be constructed this year, and described the Onitsha Water Scheme as the biggest of the proposed projects.

 The Tide’s source reports that about 186 solar powered boreholes have so far been drilled in the rural communities of the state.