FOR the umpteenth time, Ebonyi authorities have decried the substandard work being carried out by contractors handling access roads and bridges under the Unity Bridges programme, saying that some of the bridges stood the risk of collapse when subjected to heavy traffic.Disturbed by the development, the State House of Assembly Committee on Works and Transport has summoned three contractors; namely, Bulletine Construction Company, Jukok International Limited and Annmob Construction Company over alleged lapses in the projects being executed by their companies in the state.Speaking while undertaking oversight visits to some of the projects sites, the Committee Chairman, Mr. Frank Onwe, wondered why most of the jobs had either failed withina period of less than one year or were executed with substandard materials despite the presence of the supervising engineers.Onwe lamented that the state government invested huge amount of Ebonyi taxpayers' money into the infrastructure projects to ensure that the people harvested democracy dividends stressing that despite the state government's good intentions, contractors handling the projects were doing shoddy jobs in a lackadaisical manner, thereby frustrating the efforts of the government.While reiterating that the bridges of unity and access roads embarked upon by the Elechi's led administration were aimed at engendering free movement of people from one location to another and to develop the agricultural potentials of the state, Onwe declared: 'So, we are here to inspect the projects executed by the various contractors that are handling government projects in the state and from what we have seen so far most of the contractors simply collect money from the state government and abscond with the money while others end up executing shoddy jobs.'Our intension is not to witch-hunt any of the contractors but to ensure that the huge resources the state government plunge into such projects are not wasted. The contractor that handled a section of the Ezzama-Oshiri Road did a shoddy job and ran away with the state government's money. We have directed the Secretary of the Committee to write him to appear before the House and explain why he had to undertake such a sloppy job.He said: 'The managing directors of Jukok International Limited and that of Annmob Construction are equally summoned to appear before the House with the credentials of their engineers and contract documents. Ebonyi State government is not known for waste of public funds and as members of the state assembly, we would assist the present government to ensure that all the projects are not only executed according to contract specifications but also delivered within the time frame.'At the Ezzama-Oshiri 12.3 kilometre road with six span concrete bridges, committee members including Eni Uduma Chima, Blas Oji and Christian Usulor lamented that most of the contractors were merely wasting time even as they complained that the project ought to have been delivered in 2010, according to the18 months project timeline.While not ruling out the possibility of prosecuting the erring contractors, the committee noted with dismay that the supervising ministry had not been up and doing in diligently ensuring that contractors complied with specification adding that by handing the committee documents that did not show the correct stages of completion of projects, the legislators suspected connivance.However, the Chief engineer of the ministry, Mr. Obasi, told the legislators that the contract for Ezzama-Oshiri Road and the supervening bridge awarded to Bulletine Nigeria Limited was revoked and re-awarded to Paache Nigeria Limited pointing out that the noticeable decline of the road was because it was done on stone-base, adding that Bulletine covered only 1.5 kilometres before Paache took over.Also the site Engineer of Paache, Yazid Haidai, disclosed that the job was presently at 99.5 per cent completion. He said that the company decided to provide ring culvert to ward off water logging on the sides of the road even when it was not contained in the contract.At the Iyioji Bridge, they were angered by what they saw, saying that the cracks on the bridge as well as the fact of its uneven concrete cast suggested a hasty job and therefore summoned the contractor to the Assembly to explain why he had to use poor metal railings on the bridge.But in defense of his company, Annmob, Mr. Mathew Ibemgbo, stated that they experienced delay in the execution of the project when funds could not be release to the company for almost a year and blaming the perceived poor execution of the projects to the specification and design by the consultants and the supervising engineers from the Ministry of Works.
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