Edo State House of Assembly has directed the clerk of the house to liaise with the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing along with officials of the State Ministry of Infrastructure to finalize plans on when to inspect all failed portions of roads in the state.
The directive was sequel to the appearance of the Federal Controller of works and the state director of Federal Road Maintenance Agency who gave briefs on the state of deplorable roads in Edo state and roles of the agency .
According to the Federal Controller, Engr. Aransiola Razak palliative works were ongoing across the state to ease movement on the roads.
He admitted that the economic crunch in the country was behind the slow pace of work across the state where roads reconstruction were ongoing. .
Engr. Razak however said that while paucity of funds was mainly responsible for the slow pace of work, some individuals at different locality were making it impossible for the site engineers to do their work.
He however said that some of these people vowed that the drainage and culvert would be closed whenever they are opened up to take flood waters to open channels.
The claims by the Federal Controller were quickly countered by the Majority leader of the house, Hon. Henry Okhuarobo who argued that if engineers working on the roads within the metropolis were not allowed to work, the Benin bye-pass and Sapele road where there are no inhabitants was also impassable as there are no visible construction works going on the road which could have been attributed to youths not allowing engineers to work .
The lawmaker was however quick to add that through the efforts of the state ministry of infrastructure the house had ensured that these roads were motor able for all for sometime, the federal controller of works and state director of FERMA should have brought all of these challenges to the house as they(lawmakers) were closer to the constituents.
On his part the state director of FERMA, Engr. Olisa Afam said that while lasting solutions were being looked at to address the flooding problems which has been washing off all the asphalt on the affected roads plans were underway to apply reliable alternative measures able to withstand flood water on the roads.
He however sued for an effective synergy between the federal ministry of works and housing with the state government in proffering a lasting solution to the flooding problems on the roads in the state.
The Speaker, Rt.Hon.Marcus Onobun in his submission stressed the need for members of the house to have a better understanding of the problems on the affected roads by paying an inspection visit to the affected roads.
He however directed the clerk of the house to liaise with the officials of the federal ministry of works and housing along with state ministry of infrastructure to finalize plans ahead of a planned visit to these affected roads.
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