Several residents and stakeholders in Benue State have raised the alarm over the state government’s approval of N68.3 billion for the rehabilitation of the 13kms dual carriage Wurukum-Airforce base road project.

The furore over the road project stems from the residents’ foul cry that the approved funds for the road were exaggerated.

Not a few of them insisted that the state government presented the project as though it was a fresh initiated to build a brand new dual carriage road whereas, the road had been in existence but only needed to be rehabilitated, which work and cost they estimate is a far cry from the amount stated by the governor’s media aide.

Arewa PUNCH reports that no doubt, there have been cries over the estimated amount that the 13 kms road is billed to gulp, leading many of the project’s critics to insist that such humongous amount was exaggerated expecially since they pointed out that the said dual carriage road was not going to be build from scratch but rather improve on its existing state.

Some residents of Makurdi have expressed different opinions and described the N68.3 billion on the road as too expensive for a state with limited resources.

According to Emma Achir, who lives at Adaka in Makurdi, he said that anti graft agencies should beam their searchlight on the proposed estimate of the road rehabilitation.

Achir said, “Even the federal government’s ongoing 700 kms of coastal routes from Lagos to Calabar with the terrible terrain is not gulping such a huge amount.

“I was told that Wurukum to Airforce is about 13 kms and when you do the division it will give you over N5 billion per kilometer even at the 27 kms that government has said it is over N2.1 billion per km,” he calculated.

In his own contribution, Amos Daniel expressed disappointment on why the state government voted such a huge amount for a road he said is less than 25kms.

In the same vein, the State Chairman of Nigeria Society of Engineers, Phelum Manger, stated that with the situation of things in the country at present, the N68.3 billion was justified.

He explained that the distance between Wurukum roundabout to Air force base was actually 10.4 kms and added that the rehabilitation works on the road has to consider drainages because of the road proximity to River Benue.

Manger said, “It is justifiable because road projects are very expensive now. When rehabilitating a road, it’s not only to fill but you consider if there are drainages.

“And this same road has no drainages, so they have to introduce drainage along the road stone base to be able to gather the water.”

He added that since the road is going beyond the dual carriage at the Airforce base, the bridges on the existing road have to be condemned.

“So doing the dual carriage after the airforce base is very expensive,” Manger informed our correspondent.

However, in a swift response, the state Commissioner for Information, Mathew Abo said that the project work extended beyond the airforce base.

Our correspondent reports that Kulas Tersoo, the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Hyacinth Alia, had, while issuing a statement on the outcome of the State Executive Council meeting held last Friday, stated that the extension and dualisation of the Wurukum-Airforce Base Road was part of N149.5 billion the state government approved for infrastructural projects.

The statement further noted that the Benue State Executive Council last week approved more infrastructure projects aimed at transforming the state’s economy and improving the lives of its citizens.


https://punchng.com/benue-residents-decries-gov-alias-n68-3bn-road-project/