Penultimate week, one of my partners joined other media professionals to what Government House, Owerri will always dub “breakfast meeting” with Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State. After few similar outings I was part of which ended on a rather ludicrous manner, I am no longer upbeat about an interactive session with “His Excellency” in Douglas House.
For a news hunter, an opportunity to have breakfast meeting with a governor of a state should be well cherished and appreciated because of the multiplayer effects it would have on the participant. Apart from getting enriched with first class exclusive information, other bounties like “executive handshake and message from the governor will also follow. In line with the Rescue Mission spirit of present occupiers of Douglas House, the reverse is the case. The Rescue Mission spirit seems to be ravaging their mental psyche towards doing the necessary with journalists in the state. As a result, a feeling of tepidity has caught up with some pen pushers’ whenever the periodic sessions with His Excellency arises.
However, in order to represent the interest of my medium, a partner was forced to be at the recent interactive session with Okorocha in Govt House. According to him in the report to the newspaper the governor promised to complete all the projects he started before the end of May 2015, when he would have completed his first tenure in office. I was extremely elated hearing that from the number one citizen of the state. I felt it was good news considering the high rate of uncompleted projects littered across the state and number of disturbed contractors lamenting abandonment and non payments for jobs executed so far. I felt it was a welcome development that merits the governor several applause for considering it necessary to properly fix litany of uncompleted projects scattered across the state. I was particularly elated that there is light at the end of the tunnel for a group of aggrieved contractors known as Owerri City Gates Contractors Forum. The embattled city gates contractors have been lamenting Okorocha’s reported ill approach to their myriads of problems. Apart from the city gates contractors who are languishing in abject poverty as a result of high level indebt ness they incurred in the stagnated government projects, there are other scores of contractors undergoing mental torture as a result of the abandoned projects.
More so, sketches of uncompleted projects are abound in the state which challenge the sincerely of Okorocha in keeping to several of his verbal promises made in the past. On getting the mandate to be number one citizen of Imo State on May 29, 2011, Okorocha wasted no time as a Rescue Missioner to intimate Imolites that he was in a hurry to institute significant changes as well leave indelible marks on the sands of time. Without recourse to due process and associated bureaucratic bottlenecks for award of contract in government, massive execution of several projects began in earnest. Imo people witnessed a new slogan of “Go and Do” which simply implies “Go and do contract”. It was a situation where artisans and those without adequate technological and engineering knowledge of construction became contractors overnight. All kinds of earth moving equipment were drafted to available sites in the state for scrambling of road contracts. Without monetary mobilization and supervision, work commenced. Midway into Okorocha’s government, the pace of work slowed and reached snail speed level with many in abandoned state.
Ominous signs of impending doom concerning completion of projects started by Okorocha began when works on several local roads in the rural roads and city gates were stopped. Most contractors of rural roads called it quits after preliminary grading and surface dressing without compensatory funding.
The contractors who are not high profile names in the industry had spent fortune for their preliminary jobs. Frustrated that no funds came from government, the contractors employed several tactics to drive home their pleas for attention including petitions to concerned authorities and protest march on the streets of Owerri the state capital.
The City Gate Contractors are also one of the worse hit. I was privileged to observe the pioneer Mayor of Owerri zone, Uche Njoku, lead a delegation of his mayoral affair’s team to a courtesy to Archbishop Anthony Obinna, of Owerri Catholic Archdiocese. Njoku informed the revered cleric that there will be city gates stationed on all the streets in the state capital. According to him, it is part of Okorocha’s security policy where CCTV cameras and security men to be recruited by his office will be stationed at the respective gates to ensure protection of lives and property.
Reports have it that those who handled the botched contract of building city gates paid initial amounts of N100,000 to secure the project and additional N6,000 for agreement formalities with the Mayoral Affairs. On completion, the contractors are expected to be paid N3m to N3.2m depending on the model of gates. The fee for intending contractors was paid into government account via a commercial bank on Whetheral road Owerri, while the N6,000 was paid at the Mayoral office for legal document.
Except for the Concorde Gates and few gates that lead to the private residence of the governor at New Owerri, near back of Concorde Hotel, other gate projects died a natural death despite reaching advanced stages with the contractors receiving no dime from the state government.
In a recent petition sent as Save-Our-Soul, SOS message to Okorocha, the embattled contractors regaled their trauma and misfortune that had befallen them since the ventured into the city gate project. Remarkably, a keen observer of affairs of Imo State fondly called the Eastern Heartland would want to know if the abandoned city gates shall be resuscitated and completed before 2015. More worrisome to the contractors is the fact that in one of the budgets of Governor Okorocha also enshrined in the 4-year rolling plan budget, a whooping sum of N10bn was allocated for construction of city gates. How the amount paid by the city gates contractors got trapped in government purse while the Rescue Mission government jettisoned the idea of the project despite voting the money calls for concern.
Other issues begging for explanation before Okorocha makes real his promise of completing on going projects is the burden of the controversial Jpros road project. For those who may not be familiar with the Jpros Gate, the former Deputy Governor of Imo State, Sir Jude Agbaso, younger brother of APGA Chieftain and celebrated politician in the state, was impeached under controversial circumstances by the state legislature over alleged bribe-taking scandal. But later reports based on findings of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC revealed that the younger Agbaso was a victim of political horse trading and was not involved when the said N458m was traced to the foreign accounts of Joseph Dina, a Lebanese. The circumstances surrounding the transaction between the state government and Jpros was a systematic means of pulling the wool over the eyes of Imolites who may not be aware that the state lost about N900m, a reasonable percent of the N1.5bn worth of contract for the construction of a road project not more than 3 kilometers. However, the Jpros road project which shares birthday date with the Okorocha administration is still ongoing and may not be fully completed before the present administrations tenure expires five months time.
Jpros is not alone in this cadre. At a time in the life of the Okorocha administration, the media was awash of news about one foreigner again, Pepe Lopez who was alleged to have bolted away with billions of naira arising from a contract for a project awarded to a firm he is representing their interest.
It will interest Imolites to know if the Akachi Towers, Crystal Hotels yet to be built, Millennium high-rise building located at Avu Junction area of Owerri West for which elementary exercise have started be concluded before 2015 expiration date.
What of the Heartland Car Park Centre another, high rise building that the Ama JK Recreation Park gave way to in the heart of the city? I expect the contractors to engage magical prowess to complete the job as promised by the governor.
Governor Okorocha should not expect Imolites to regard his promise of completing all projects he started before 2015 as another sheer political gimmickry and rhetoric to hoodwink the masses. It was expected that after the LGA tour of the governor to asses level of projects embarked upon by his government, drastic changes would have trailed the exercise. However, there is no significant improvement recorded. The hullabaloo over arrest of erring contractors accused of either defrauding or fleeing with contract fees has turned out to be a feeble. Nothing has been heard about the possible prosecution of the said apprehended offending contractors after the widely reported arrests by agents of government and security operatives. Rather, beneficiary communities have been crying and reaching out for succor following spate of abandonment of contracts.
I guess that part of the project Imo people would cheerfully appreciate its completion is the uncertain Bank Road-Nworie River flyover bridge project. When the federal government under President Goodluck Jonathan flagged off the commencement of work for the construction of 2nd Niger Bridge linking Onitsha to Asaba, Governor Okorocha replicated the President’s feat by kicking off the construction of Nworie flyover from Control Post World Bank road.
While kick-starting the project, Okorocha disclosed that the flyover project will be completed before December 2014. Weeks after work commenced in earnest without an identifiable and renowned name displayed as contractor handling the project, work has stopped and from all indications could be ad infinitum. Except there is a miracle that will see to the completion of the project, all initial frame work jobs have become a waste as what is left behind is only the carcass of the skeletal jobs left behind.
Ironically, the manner projects are executed in the present dispensation are not in tandem with expected best practices in award, execution and monitoring of projects, hence the quantum of abandoned projects. While most contracts have been arbitrarily withdrawn from the initial beneficiaries and purloined by few persons in government under “Direct Labour”, most functionaries in all arms of government can be said to be handling available contracts in the state. Affected more is the body expected to play oversight function in monitoring activities of the executive arm; the House of Assembly. In the much cherished executive/legislative rosy relationship, the state lawmakers bought into the idea of not only nominating contractors but also got directly involved in road construction. The governor’s last tour further exposed the shady deals of lawmaker – turned contractors of the Imo Assembly when Okorocha disgraced some of them before their constituents and threatened to arrest those found wanting for defaulting in execution of road contracts awarded to firms. Aides of the bigwigs in the state legislature were not left out in receiving the governor’s backlash when they were implicated in some of the road project scandal. Even contractors who managed to handle road projects raised alarm over alleged rip off they suffered in the hands of the disbanded committee in charge of projects made up of lawmakers to supervise the projects. The committee in connivance with state government made it compulsory for the contractors to allow their private asphalt plants handle that stage of the road project. It was debasing to observe that instead of monitoring quality and completion of jobs by contractors, the arm entrusted with the constitutional right to supervise projects through oversight functions turned mega contractors with crush rock firms and asphalt plants which they force on helpless contractors.
It appears difficult to believe Okorocha’s promise of completing all projects he started before the end of his first tenure when contracts in the state are still shrouded in secrecy and the true identity of the executors hidden from public notice. The accepted and common practice at the state and national level is the display of all contracts through sign post of name of contractor and project, supervisor, client, consultant and duration of execution, than what is practiced is obtained in the state at the moment in Imo which is erection of APC flag.
As the hands of clock tickles towards May 29, 2015, it our humble prayers in Imo that the promise our dear government will come to pass.
