Fides Media Living the Faith
There is little doubt that the Anambra State Government of Prof Chukwuma Soludo is desirous of fixing the dilapidated roads in the state, given the rash of road flag offs across the state. This is a development that has brought joy to many owing to the collapse of many roads all over the state.
While flagging off the roads, the governor had assured that many of them would be ready before the rainy season. However, with a month or so to the rains, it does seem as though many of those roads will not be ready.
In some places within the capital city, the contractors seem to have abandoned work after scraping the road surface, exposing residents, shop owners and passers-by to dust showers. It is believed that given the time lag between when they stopped work and now, some of those roads would have been getting completed by now.
To this end, we are urging the Anambra State Ministry of Works to look into this matter by monitoring the progress of work at these sites. Should the rains catch up with these roads in their present stage, they will rubbish all the efforts put in so far.
A good example of what we are saying are the roads in the Okpuno area of the Awka capital city. It has been up to three weeks since the surfaces of roads there were scraped without anything being done and this also includes the Abakaliki or Club Road site.
The dust raised in these places by vehicles can constitute a health hazard, as well as affecting businesses. It does not therefore make sense for the roads to be scraped without a quick follow up action. It is only in this part of the world that such lousiness can happen. People are not supposed to be put through such difficulty.
We are therefore calling on the contractors to quickly finish what they started, just as we beseech the concerned state ministry to be applying the right checks.
If the rains catch up with these roads it will not only make things more difficult but will also amount to a waste of scarce resources, being that it will gulp more money.
But we are using this opportunity to commend the Anambra State Government on its resolve to put smiles on the faces of the people of the state by the massive road construction going on all over the state. It should not rest on its oars.