Abia State Governor, Alex Otti, has indicated his willingness to rehabilitate dilapidated federal roads in the state, if he finds the money, expecting reimbursement thereafter from the Federal Government.
Minister of Works and immediate past governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi reportedly said recently that any state government that decides to fix federal road would be given the approval to so do within hours.
Otti, who disclosed his intention, yesterday, to the minister, who was in Abia on roads inspection, expressed his government’s readiness to cooperate with the Federal Government to fix the roads.
He expressed worry over the stress commuters face on federal roads on Aba-Port Harcourt road, lamenting that the hitherto 30 minutes journey now takes people not less than three hours.
Noting that the scenario impacted negatively on the markets in Aba, he informed the minister that he had already engaged a construction company to do some work on the road and put one of the two lanes to work.
Specifically, Otti offered to engage the minister on the Umuahia-Bende-Abriba-Ohafia to Arochukwu federal road, which, he recalled, contract for its rehabilitation was awarded by the defunct Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) when former President Muhammadu Buhari was the chairman under the late General Sani Abacha’s regime.
The governor said the contract was abandoned and later re-awarded in 2011 by President Goodluck Jonathan, and was abandoned again.
“We believe that we should support the Federal Government in delivering dividends of democracy to our people,” he stressed.
Umahi had pleaded with Governor Otti to do the needful that would facilitate the building of a Trailer Park at Arungwa on the Enugu- Port Harcourt expressway, as well as acquire the designated sites and partner the Federal Government to develop them with the private sector.