The Federal Government has approved N185B for the reconstruction and dualization of Itu/ Calabar highway, tranversing Akwa Ibom and Cross River states.
The Federal road, linking the two states has been in deplorable condition over a decade and subjecting commuters to severe suffering and risk and the people of both states to economic loss.
Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Ita Enang who made this known while inspecting progress of work on the project yesterday said that the construction is been undertaken by three contractors and would be funded from the over N600B tax credit made available by the NNPC and the Federal Inland Revenue Service.
A section of the road according to Enang is been handled by Julius Berger for N54B while N52B was approved for CCECC to handle with
SERMATECH Engineering getting N79b for their own section.
The Presidential Aide who commended the president for his benevolence in sourcing for funds for the project attributed the delay in the construction of the road to lack of funds assured the people that the project would be completed on schedule since funds have been made available.
“We have been having problems of getting funding for the road, but Mr President has asked me to assure you that we raised money from the tax credit window from federal inland revenue service to the NNPC to fund critical infrastructure mainly road infrastructure.
“Out of the over N600billion raised from NNPC as tax credit, a great part that is N185B has been dedicated to this road. The road was awarded in three tranches. The first money that was available was N54B and was for Julius Berger, N52B to CCECC and the last N79B to SAMATECH Engineering.
“This road was designed for dualization since 1972 and only one lane of the four lanes was constructed believing that others would be constructed since then. Thank God, President Mohammadu Buhari has started constructing other lanes with four bridges and he has promised to complete it within the time frame.” He explained.
Enang who commended SERMATECH Engineering for their sense of responsibility in making the road passable during the yuletide however expressed reservations over the non challant attitude of Julius Berger in handling their own section of the road.
The SERMATECH site representative, Engr Joseph Upata who spoke with journalists said the company has reviewed the time frame of the completion of the project from three years to two saying that their own part of road would be completed by April 2023.
On the progress recorded he said, “we have cleared 7kms of the road, we have done full earth works. There are four major bridges and several culverts and we have divided ourselves into four teams, another two teams that specialized in building of bridges are coming next week to make the work faster.
Newsmen observed that the entire strech of the road though not smooth has been made passable by the intervention of SERMATECH as well as the Federal Road Maintenance Agency, FeRMA.
The village head of Ikot Ebiya, Oku Iboku in Akwa Ibom, Eteidung Ikot Idem thanked President Buhari as well as his Aide for the intervention and urged them not to abandon the project even as he encouraged them to keep to their words of dualizing the road.
