By Samuel Ogenyi, Uyo
Distraught residents of Uboro Oro community in Urue Offong Oruko Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom have expressed anger over some unexecuted Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) road projects abandoned by the contractors.
The petition which was addressed to the House of Representatives Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) was made available to newsmen in Uyo yesterday, and signed by Chief Bassey Isong, Chairman of the project Committee of the Uboro Oro Progressives Union (UPU).
According to the petitions “the interventionist agency had awarded a N90million contract to a construction firm, Trail Blazer Engineering Ltd for a one kilometre of road spanning from the East-West road at Umume in the same Local Government Area”, lamenting that the contract was thereafter abandoned.
The petitioners pointed at the mega road project awarded by the NDDC to the tune of N2.6billion to another firm, HIGGENSMARA Nig Ltd with the initial mobilization cash of N300million, regretting that the 18 kilometre road had since been abandoned.
The road, they 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, the petitiomers recalled, was 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 N90million 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 N2.6billion job was told that the mother of the Managing Director (MD) of HIGGENSMARA Nig Ltd had health challenge and he had to use the N300million 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 projects and presented 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 frauds and contracts scam.
