Kaduna communities loud El-Rufai over completion of 190mtrs bridge
Kaduna communities loud El-Rufai over completion of 190mtrs bridge
//Goodwin Ekosin, Kaduna//
Demonstrating that government is a continuous process, Kaduna Governor, Nasir El-Rufai has mobilised contractor handling the the Romi-Karatudu bridge to complete the project.
Some of the beneficiary who spoke to Gobroadsheet during an assessment tour of some road projects within the metropolis confirmed that TigerCat Construction Company completed the bridge February this year and opened it for use same month.
The project is among one of the 31 roads contracts awarded in October, 2012 by the Late Kaduna Governor , Sir Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa .
It was however gathered that after the death of late Yakowa in December 2012, most of the roads contracts, including the Romi-Karatudu-Kakau road were abandoned due to lack of funds.
In a chat with the site Engineer, Joseph Onche after the tour, he said completion of the 190 meters bridge project, which is part of the six kilometres Romi-Karadu-Kakau Yakowa road project was made possible by Governor El-Rufai, who “mobilised us contractors back to site.”
He said, “we retuned to site in November, 2015, after the Governor checked the work and saw that there was need to complete the work. I think he understood the importance of the road to people of the area.
“Since then his government has been making response to the payments. But because we exceed the contract duration, the government has completely withdrawn mobilisation. And that for us is another double loss. Now, we are working and claiming as we work .The difference is that with mobilisation, there is power to move at fast pace.
“We returned to site November last year and by February we complete it for use .”
While pointing out that failure to release funds on side of the Governor Ramalan Yero administration stalled the completion of the project, he noted , “Even at that ,we were still on site trying to work with hope that the government then will consider us for payment ,which never came.”
A resident of Karatudu, Sati Habila Sock, narrated the hardship they faced when the bridge and road was abandoned. According to him, the completion of the bridge has made movement and transportation easy.
“We used to go through Goni-Gora if we have to go to Romi, which is a stone throw here, because the make shift Iron bridge was damage by last year’s flood .”
“We can’t thank El-Rufai enough for completing the bridge, but we are begging him to help us complete the road before rains becomes serious.”
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