State Of Ikpide-Irri N1.5 Billion Road Project Unacceptable – Delta Govt

The Delta State Government, says it will never accept the current state of the controversial N1.5 billion road project at Ikpide-Irri riverine community, Isoko South Local Government Area of Delta state.

The road project is being executed by a Lagos state based marine company, Portplus Nigeria limited.

Governor Ifeanyi Okowa had in 2017 awarded the first phase of the contract to Portplus at N736,404,555.60, but the contract was in 2019 reviewed upward to over a billion naira following claims that the project was substandard and fell short of a standard road projects being executed by the government.

It was gathered that a pressure group, Isoko Monitoring Group, (IMG), following the refusal of the contractor to adhere strictly to standards and quality had written a strong worded petition entitled “Ikpide-Irri Internal Road: The Need To Properly Monitor The Contractor and Stop The Ongoing Shoddy Job”.

The petition was addressed to the state government through the office of the Special Adviser to the governor, on project monitoring and evaluation.

The group, which has been at the forefront agitating against the poor execution of the ongoing internal road, in the petition signed by its spokesman, Dr. Kingsley Oroh, Ph.D, urged that Portplus firm should be stopped immediately or else the efforts and resources of the state government will be a waste.

To address the failure and refusal of the company to maintain standards and quality in the construction of the road, the group said it is time to take appropriate action against the contractor who is an indigene of the community.

“We have been able to established before now that the contractor, Portplus Limited that is handling the project has done jobs which fell below the generally accepted standard and that of the Bill of Quantity (BOQ) of the the project. The Contractor needs to be cautioned and made to follow the BOQ of the project to avoid giving the Delta State government a very bad image.

“We want to believe that your office as the Special Adviser is designed to unearth projects that are being executed poorly across the state and hold such erring contractors accountable in order to avoid deliberate attempts to discredit the government of the day and paint it in bad light before the general public.

“While we are happy that the second approved drainage system is now being constructed, we want to state categorically that the job being done is way below average and needs to be discontinued.”

Following the petition, the state government on Thursday paid an unscheduled visit to the site, and expressed disappointment and declared the multi billion naira road project by Portplus firm as nothing but substandard.

Speaking during the unscheduled visit, Special Adviser to the state governor on Project Implementation, Evaluation and Monitoring, Johnson Erijo, in company of a team of engineers and government officials, frowned at the low quality of job by Portplus firm, describing the substandard job as unfortunate and a wastage of state government resources.

“This is unacceptable, governor Ifeanyi Okowa will not accept this poor quality of job. The governor is very unhappy with the huge resources he has put so far into this project. Just recently the contract gained upward review and there is nothing on ground to show good quality of job and value for money. Government must get value for funds released for projects”, Erijo was quoted to have said.

Erijo, while disclosing that the unscheduled visit to the site was as a result of the petition written by the Isoko Monitoring Group, condemned in its entirety the job done so far by the firm, adding that what is on ground can not stand the test of time.

The contract had generated series of controversy following protests and petitions by indigenes and pressure groups in the state. The situation forced the state government to delegate the commissioner for works, James Augoye in company of engineers from the ministry to visit the site in 2018 from where the government had threatened to blacklist Portplus firm over the shoddy job.