Fashola: Minister of Works, Power and Housing

Mr Babatunde Fashola, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing on Thursday said emergency intervention would be adopted on Calabar-Ogoja-Ikom road project to ease the suffering of commuters in the area.

Fashola who stated this in Calabar during an inspection tour of the project said the intervention would be to cover the portholes and work on the failed sections of the road.

He said the idea was to reduce the challenges faced by motorist during rainy seasons.

The minister, therefore, ordered the Federal Controller of Works in the state, the contractors and the state commissioner of works to put up a recommendation to achieve the process.

“I am happy that I came here working with the honorable commissioner, the contractors and our controller.

“We have resolved to put what at best one can call pain management solution in place to ease the trauma of the rainy season in the failed sessions of the road.

“It will be a little more expensive because ultimately when we start expanding the whole road, we will have to do the same thing again.

“But again, the cost against the pain would have a beneficial analysis to the people at the end of the day and will help the state to pursue its developmental aspirations,” he said.

Fashola said the greatest challenge facing the nation’s power sector was the sabotage of power assets.

According to him, people who want power cannot be sabotaging gas pipelines and depriving the nation of the fuel that is required to produce the power.

The minister called on aggrieved Nigerians to understand that damaging the power assets was not the best way to express anger.

In his remark, Mr Dane Asu, the Cross River Commissioner for Works commended the minister for embarking on inspection tour of the federal government road projects in the state.

He said the problem of roads in the state was not peculiar than what was obtainable in the South-South.

According to him, our problem the state “really precarious especially where you have about 10 to 11 months of rainfall”.

“”Our top soil do not give credence to the performance of road and the problem is compounded with the increasing heavy trucks plying the road,” he said.

(NAN)