World enews: Governor Okowa Justifies Substandard Projects, Use Of Incompetent Contractors In Delta

Since the coming of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa’s Peoples Democratic Party administration in Delta State, residents of the state have observed a litany of substandard projects including failed and collapsed road projects, usually three to six months after opening them.

SaharaReporters gathered that the incessant collapse of multi-million naira road projects in the state could be attributed to incompetent contractors being hired by the state government.

One of them, the newly constructed multi-million naira Direct Labour Agency (DLA) road, awarded in December 2018, by the Governor Ifeanyi Okowa-led administration in Delta State, collapsed six months after it was inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony.

The road, which was inaugurated with fanfare by former Senate President Bukola Saraki on Friday, March 19, 2021, on the invitation of the state governor, Okowa, collapsed three weeks ago, barely six months after it was inaugurated.

Also in 2017, another multi-billion naira road constructed by governor Okowa’s administration in Asaba, the state capital, collapsed just six months after their inauguration.

Since 2018, residents of Ikpide-Irri riverine community, Isoko South Local Government Area of Delta State, had called on the state government over the use of substandard materials in the community’s N1.5billion road project.

Some workers in the state Ministry of Works, who are not comfortable with the spate of shoddy and collapsed road projects in the state, revealed that some top state officials collected bribes from the incompetent contractors to facilitate payments.

Meanwhile, sometime in 2020, during a press conference in Government House, Asaba, a reporter confronted the governor on the substandard road projects especially the controversial N1.5billion Ikpide-Irri substandard road project.

Responding, Okowa had said, “It is possible when you have so many jobs that are ongoing, it is possible to have a few defects. It is possible to have people who are contractors but may not be standard enough. You have just drawn my attention to Ikpide-Irri and Okpe-Isoko roads, it’s not wrong to draw my attention as governor to road defects. I don’t hate criticism.”