The Federal Government has assured that commuters years of suffering on the deplorable Calabar-Itu highway would become a thing of the past within the next two months.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, gave the assurance during an inspection of the highway on Saturday.
The Minister said that as part of effort to ensure commuters enjoy a seamless journey on the highway, Hitech construction company would be drafted in to carry out immediate palliative work.
He explained that the need to draft in Hitech was to fill the gap where a “stop work” order had been issued to a contractor for not meeting up on deadline.
He acknowledged mistakes were made by the ministry for not carrying out due diligence on some of the contractors who later awarded some sections of the highway.
“I think giving the job to a Raycon is a mistake on the side of the ministry and we admit the failure on our side because we did not do proper due diligence to know whether a Raycon has the capacity to do this job.
“This job is definitely beyond the capacity of Raycon and the kind of equipment they deployed may not be their fault. But this is one of the worst roads in this country.
“Just like we did on a section of the road, we are again inviting Hitech to intervene on this 9.7km of Raycon section and they are going to be working day and night to put the place in order.
“This is going to be an emergency procurement, but they need to start work immediately.
“What I am seeing here is not desirable, and this is not what Mr President wants for our people.
He wants our people to travel safely and travel time to be shortened,” he said.
The minister explained that Hitech would also be engaged to do the permanent work on the sections they wouldn’t becarrying out palliatives on.
NAN reports that the Calabar-Itu road constructed in the 70s, is the only road that connects Cross River and Akwa Ibom and has been in bad state for over a decade.
Approval was granted by the late President Muhammadu Buhari led administration to reconstruct and dualised the highway in December 2021 through the tax credit scheme.
The scheme was to cost the then Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) N185 billion for the construction and dualisation.
However, due to the collapse of the scheme, work had progressed slowly on the reconstruction, leaving commuters with bitter taste on the highway. (NAN)
