Nigeria’s Minister of Works, David Umahi has directed Contractors to stop and redesign all road projects in the country to meet professional standards and employ at least seven professionals to supervise the projects.
The Minister gave the directive when he toured some ongoing road construction Works in Edo and Delta States in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.
Mr. Umahi while lamenting the bad road jobs being constructed, noted that the roads from Abuja, Nigeria’s capital to Benin, Edo State capital would not last more than 5 years.
According to him, “This is due to a lack of penetration testing, adulterated materials, and insufficient professional touch to the jobs.”
The Minister said; “On the side of the contractors, there are no good intentions, they don’t have enough personnel that are qualified, I have just directed that every project must have a Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN ) registered Engineer to be the project manager for all contracts for every company on the road and the person must not have less than 15years on road construction.”
“I have directed that we shall no more do surface dressing on our road shoulders, I have directed that all projects must stop and be redesigned on concrete. The truth is that none of these roads that are built from Abuja to Benin will last more than 5years and that is very unfortunate, roads are failing because most of the contractors don’t do what is called penetration test, we also have adulterated bitumen, the bitumen imported into this country are adulterated, they should go to Ondo and Ogun State and develop our abundant bitumen there,” he said.
Mr. Umahi said; “They should also employ our engineers; material engineers, geotechnical engineers, surveyors, structural engineers, and road engineers, every project should not have less than seven professionals supervising it for the Ministry of Works, we are going to reset our road construction so that the people can smile again under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”
During the joint inspection, Levant Construction Company which is handling some of the Nigerian government Road projects linking Edo and Delta States in Benin was directed by the Minister to immediately start the maintenance work of the Benin – Sapele road at night and that the bad spots be made motorable within 30days.
The Deputy Governor of Delta State, Mr. Monday Onyeme went on the tour of Benin –Sapele –Warri Road, Sapele Roundabout, ongoing dualisation of Sapele –Ewu road, Sapele – Agbor Road and Nigerian Port Authority roads in Delta State with the Minister.
Mr. Onyeme at a press briefing after the tour appreciated Mr. Umahi for his passion for fixing Nigerian roads and pledged the support and cooperation of the Delta State to achieving better roads in the Niger Delta region.
Mercy Chukwudiebere
