Poor funding may delay Ibadan-Ilorin road - Contractor

THE contractor handling Oyo-Ogbomoso axis of Ibadan-Ilorin road, Reynold Construction Company (RCC), has disclosed that the project may not be completed on time due to poor funding.
Mr Nadar Yusuf , the Project Manager for RCC, conducting the project monitoring team from the Budget Office of the Federationround the 52km road at the weekend, observed that with the way the Federal Government was releasing fund for the project, the 2013 completion date may nor be a reality.
According to the project manager, the Federal Government, in the first and second quarter of 2012, had so far released about N2 billion, instead of the estimated N15 billion that would ensure the three-year completion date of the project.
Foreclosing the possibility of completing the project in 2013, Yusuf said with the pattern of fund release for the project by the Federal Government, it may take between 10 and 20 years for it to be completed.
The RCC manager accused the government of not showing enough financial commitment to the project, adding that it had not addressed the issue of compensation to those whose houses and farmlands were affected.
To enable the company to start work, he said the RCC had to pay owners of farmland, while waiting for government's refund.
Also speaking, the resident engineer, Mr Godwin Eghieye, told themonitoring team that he was not happy about the slow pace of the project, which he put at 25.33 per cent completion.
According to him, the value of permanent work till date for the project estimated at N47,504,138,344.20 and awarded in June 2010 was N10,135,104,625.57.
Eghieye, providing an insight on the project, disclosed that apart from the physical works that could be seen, some intangible works, like setting out and sub-soil investigation on the carriage way, were ongoing.