Consultant commends Fashola’s inspection tour of Niger Delta road projects

  

A highway engineer, Mr Mayne David-West, says the projects tour in Niger Delta Region by the Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, is reassuring to the people.

                       

David-West made the assertion in an interview  on Tuesday in Yenagoa.

He spoke against the backdrop of Fashola’s recent inspection visit to some ongoing and abandoned Federal roads projects in region.

He linked inadequate budgetary provisions, payment beyond timeframe, and community-related problems as factors responsible for the delay in the completion of major federal road projects in the region.

According to him, the decision by the minister to visit the abandoned Bodo-Bonny road project in Rivers and Yenegwe-Okarki-Kolo road project had raised the hope of people in the region.

He said the tour would help in consolidating the gains of the visit by the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, and re-assured the hope of the Federal Government’s readiness to accelerate development of the region.

“It is difficult to swallow that a 33.5km road project awarded since 2009 has a completion status of only 47.76 per cent as at now.

“The Federal Government should do all it could to facilitate the completion of stalled projects.

“Each time there is delay in a project, it pushes the price up. A road like Bodo-Bonny road has been in the realm of dreams since 1974.

“In 1990, we carried out some preliminary studies and produced inception report and drawings on this road and the preliminary cost estimate was just a few hundreds of millions of Naira then.

“But today, that project will cost nothing less than N150 billion,” David-West said.

He explained that the Bodo-Bonny road alignment which was proposed to run initially along the eastern periphery of Bonny Island, crosses the Nanabie River.

“The road then flies over Opobo Channel and Patrick Creek before running through Bodo to Mogho Junction after a distance of about 39km,’’ David-West.

According to him, the Bodo-Bonny road project will entail engineering “soil transplant’’ procedure, PVD installation, embankment placement and the construction of three River Crossings.

“The crossings are namely the Opobo Channel, which is about 950 metres long, the Nanabie Crossing which is about 720 metres and Patrick Creeks which is 600 meters long,’’ he said.

David-West said that he was very confident that with the visit of Fashola, the Bodo-Bonny Road project would commence.

He urged all the major stakeholders of the Bodo-Bonny Road to forge a partnership in raising funds for the construction and timely completion of the road.

David-West listed the stakeholders to include Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

Others are Multinational Oil Companies, Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Rivers State Government and Federal Government of Nigeria.

 David-West is currently with the Pearl Consultants, the firm that designed the 730km East-West Coastal Highway (Calabar to Lagos), and handling the 33.5km Yenegwe-Okarki-Kolo road project.