MORE AGENDA: Okotomi Residents Decry Poor Road Construction Work, Seek Gov Oborevwori’s Intervention

RESIDENTS of Nwawolo and Okotomi Layout, within the Asaba Core Area 2, have decried the poor construction work being carried out by the contractor in the area and called on the Delta State Governor, Sheriff Oborevwori to in the spirit of his MORE agenda in the governance of the state, intervene.
According to them, the less than one kilometre road off Midwifery Road, towards the Asaba Specialist Teaching Hospital has been under construction since January 2022 and was abandoned. They added that work resumed on the road last month, after almost two years of abandonment, characterized by intermittent on and off site situations but expressed serious concerns about the poor quality of work being delivered by the contractor, especially given the terrain whenever the rains sets in.
Some of the respondents who craved anonymity, while speaking with our correspondent disclosed that right from the onset, the contractor failed to carry out the construction work to specification, a situation which elicited petitions against him to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission whose intervention led to the latest resumption of work on the road.
According to them, the recent asphalt over lay on the road fall far beyond the standard practice as it was less than two inches as against the minimum four inches.
They stated that the road will not stand one rainy season at the rate it is being done, adding that as is characteristic with the contractor, some portions of the road from the slope up to the Catholic Church are showing signs of a very poor job while another portion close to the junction where it connects with the road leading to the Asaba Specialist Hospital has been left untarred weeks after the asphalt overlay with equipment left blocking part of the narrow road, causing hold ups at prime periods of the day.
While expressing their concerns, they also called on the two commissioners for Works, their counterpart in Urban development and any other relevant government agency concerned to ensure adequate supervision of work awarded to contractors, especially roads; and particularly this road in focus in order to ensure that such roads stand the test of time.

They noted that their concern is timely, now that the contractor is still on site so that the relevant ministries and government agencies concerned will prevail on the contractor to do the needful and correct all construction errors on the road before leaving site.
The road which crosses through Christ The King Catholic Church down to the popular Nwawolo Market in the Okotomi Layout area of Okpanam is a major rural connecting road that serves the surging population of civil servants, business persons and others.