Natives of Uboro Oro in Urue Offong Oruko local government area of Akwa Ibom state have deplored the spate of Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, road projects in the area.
Bassey Isong, the chairman Uboro Oro Progressives Union Project Committee, on behalf of the community has petitioned the House of Representatives Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, the Independent Corrupt Practices, and other related offences Commission, ICPC, on the issue.
Other signatories include Pastor Asukwo Mkpesit, Secretary of the projects Committee and Mr. Okwong Otioro, the Legal Adviser, and Ofong Effiong Unanaowo (JP), the traditional ruler of the area.
According to the petitions “the interventionist agency had awarded a N90 million contract to a construction firm, Trail Blazer Engineering Ltd for one kilometer of road spanning from the East-West road at Umume in the same Local Government Area,” lamenting that the contract was thereafter abandoned.
In the same vein, the petitioners pointed at the mega road project awarded by the NDDC to the tune of N2.6 billion to another firm, HIGGENSMARA Nig Ltd with the initial mobilization cash of N300million, regretting that the 18-kilometer road had since been abandoned.
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The road, the petitioners explained, “was to begin from Oyoku Assang in Okobo Local Government Area through Okiuso and Eweme in the same Council area with a spur of nine kilometers from Umume on East-West road, through Uboro-Oro, into Mbo Local Government Aarea.”
The contracts, they recalled, were flagged-off with fanfare on Wednesday, 17 July 2013, as the village head of the Uboro Oro community handed over the projects to the beneficiary firms of the NDDC.
“That day and the ceremony was the last anything happened on the N90 million contracts, while an official of the NDDC told a representative of the community who went to Port Harcourt, Rivers state-to ascertain the petition of the N2.6 billion job was told that the mother of the Managing Director, MD, of HIGGENSMARA Nig Ltd had a health challenge and he had to use the N300 million mobilization fee to her abroad for treatment.”
They noted that the affected communities were forced to move with the petitions after discovering that the contractors in collusion with the NDDC officials had taken photographs of another completed project and presented the same “as evidence that the jobs had been completed.”
They, therefore, urged the Reps’ Speaker and the ICPC to investigate the matter with a view to compelling the contractors to return to sites, especially now that the NDDC books are being subjected to forensic analysis over years of fraud and contracts scam.
Source: The Nation
