FG promises to deliver on projects completion – Perm Sec

By Omotayo Edubi

The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, Alhaji Babangida Ussaini, has guaranteed developed grey areas, including vegetation control, on the ongoing construction at the Abuja-Kaduna road.

He made the assurance while inspecting the work progress on the Abuja-Kaduna road on Friday in Kaduna.

He noted that sustained management which he began in 2020 is aimed at ensuring that contractors are up and doing on what they are doing.

“We have seen a lot of progress; some channels have been opened and we also spotted areas we need to improve which include vegetation control.

“If you notice along the corridors, there are a lot of shrubs and bushes along the way which I think are not safe, especially in this season when people do a lot of bush burning”.

Ussaini also said that what is usually submitted at office in files is usually not as strong as what is on the ground, but commended the significant progress he has seen physically during the inspections.

Ussaini further noted that with the bad condition of the Abuja-Kaduna road, caused by the huge volume of traffic, officials are doing patches as sedative measures before the new road will be built.

“After the rainy season, we agreed to patch those areas prone to criminal activities and this is why we are making efforts, and we have already given engineers orders to begin the palliative measures.

“This is what we have encapsulated today and certainly in the next couple of days you will see changes,” he said.

He said that various commissioning of roads in various parts of the country shows the level of positive progress in road construction across the country.

He reeled out the roads commissioned as three in Azare to Potiskum and on Monday we are commissioning Shuarin Azare.
“We have commissioned Sokoto to Tambuwal, Obudu, part of Enugu to Port Harcourt expressway, we will continue to see a lot of commissioning,” he added.

He said the Eastern by-pass project, awarded since 2012, had suffered technical challenges including compensation, right of way, issues of community dislocation and many others.

“From 2015 to date, if you look at the trajectory of the progress, you will discover that there is significant progress and currently, we are almost done with the road works.

”We are doing the bridges across the Kaduna river.

“It is an engineering job and the piling work had been completed, we are working on the decking, hopefully at the rate we are working the road should have been completed but for compensation and relocation.

“At the rate we are moving, we will beat our 2025 deadline for the Abuja-Kaduna road because section ‘1’ is coming up perfectly and definitely by end of next year, we will complete sections ‘2’ and ‘3’,” he said.