Akwa Ibom State government has said it has so far spent about N50 billion on flood control projects in the state in the last seven years.
It has also said that the N14 billion IBB Way World Bank assisted major flood control project in Uyo would be put into use at the end of the month, ending months of frustration and anxiety from residents over the growing menace of flooding in the state capital.
State commissioner for Environment and Solid Minerals, Mr Charles Udoh who disclosed this to newsmen in Uyo last weekend said some of the major flood control projects include those on IBB Way, Etim Umana Street, Ikpa road, Anua in Uyo and several others in other parts of the state.
Udoh however blamed constant rain for the delay in the timely completion and delivery of many of the erosion control projects in the state.
Besides rain, the Commisioner explained other secondary issues such as activities of vandals and the attitude of some residents on compensation payment slowed down the pace of work especially on the IBB Way flood control project which has exceeded it’s completion period by six months.
According to him, “If you recount almost eight months, last year, work was stalled because of rain, we had a very unusual amount of rainfall and once the rain falls there is hardly any significant thing you , can do on these project sites, especially earth works,because once the soil is moisturized you can’t compact, that is why you see the work hasn’t been done.
“Rain has been a major challenge, because anytime it rains it takes us about three days to recover. Another issue is the attitude of people for instance, a gentleman collected compensation fee on his asset and goes behind to petition the state government to world bank that we didn’t pay him, and unfortunately for him he thinks that we are not aware.
“What we do in compensation is that if we are paying you, we will do evaluation, an international standard evaluation with a consultant too, your village head, chairman of the village council, youth leader etc will confirm your ownership of the asset and they will be present before giving you the compensation and we take pictures.
“So this gentleman goes round saying that we didn’t pay him. Of course, the World bank knows how to settle such matters, for me it heartbreaking because this gentleman’s house was perpetually under the water and we are coming to help him take him out of his misery, but he is there trying to frustrate us,atleast he is not the only one who has done this there are many of them who do these things because of selfish interest.
“We also have issues where in the precast drain, vandals have gone there to vandalise. The sad thing is that when the precast drain is being built, there are protruding rods that form the joinings to make it compact. At the dearth of the night, people will go and cut those rods and when you cut the rods that precast membrane is useless; it’s not going to stand alone.”
The cimmissioner however expressed joy that despite the hicupps, work has reached 95% completion with the drain works.
“Now we are almost 95% done with the main drain, we have completed the alignment from state secretariat, what is remaining is to join it with the one at Atiku Abubakar Avenue.
“We have done parameter fencing in places where they are required especially in IBB Avenue, because if water sweeps someone there, such person is gone so we are going to put filters there just majorly for two reasons, one for safety of human lives and for it not to be a den of robbers or hoodlums.
“We are just trying to be a bit fast because the world bank granted us one month extension so we are just working day and night to beat the deadline. The World bank window was closed last month, May, so as it stands now all the works need to be done on or before the end of June, even if the work is not completely done but at least before the end of June, water must be able to move from IBB to a the outfall comfortably.” Udoh said.
