East-West Road Completion To Cost N70bn -Reps

Head, Financial Inclusion, CBN, Mrs Akin-Fadeyi Temitope, fielding questions from journalists at the end of the workshop on Financial Inclusion organised by CBN in Port Harcourt recently. Photo: Chris Monyanaga

The East-West Road, a major link road in the Niger Delta region, will cost the Federal Government another estimated N70billion to be completed, the House of Representatives Committee on Niger Delta Affairs said yesterday.
The Chairman of the committee, Warman Ogoriba, who gave the figure in Abuja, explained that after a series of meetings with government officials and the contractors handling the project, it was clear that poor funding had remained the key factor delaying the completion of the strategic road.
The project is divided into five sections, beginning from Warri in Delta State, and cutting through Rivers, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom and ending in Cross River State.
However, work is currently progressing on only sections I-IV of the 338-kilometre road, with a 79.42ý per cent completion rate.
Annual funding of the project is said to be short by N36.6bn, leaving contractors grumbling owing to unpaid certificates.
But Ogoriba noted that despite the funding challenges, the committee was optimistic that the road could be delivered by December 2015.
Ogoriba, who is from Bayelsa State, said, “We will again look at the reports submitted by the contractors, such as Setraco, RCC to see what updates they have.
“But for the budget, I think what we need to finish the East-West Road in 2015 is about N60billion to N70billion. And it depends on how much we get from the budgetary allocation for 2015 as well as SURE-P intervention. That is when we will know if the road will be delivered by then, but besides that, work has gone very far and we believe it will continue like that till the end.”
Only in September, the Minister of Niger Delta Ministry, Steve Oru, had disclosed that N268.4billion had been paid to contractors working on the road, out of a total contact sum of N349.8billion.
Government has been inconsistent on the completion date of the road. The ministry initially assured the stakeholders that the road would be ready by December this year.
But, during a meeting with the House committee in September, Oru made a U-turn, saying that at best, portions of sections I-IV would be ready before Christmas, and not the entire road.
He declined to make a commitment to a new completion date.
Oru told the committee, “Initially, we looked at December, but the contractors have told me the challenges they are facing.
“Work is rapidly in progress, but December will not be possible.
“What will is that a good section of the road will be made useable ý before the Christmas period.”