Kano-Shuarin Road to Gulp N4b Subsidy Funds-SURE-P

DUTSE, August 08, (THEWILL) - The Kano-Shuarin road dualisation project would gulp N4bn subsidy intervention funds, the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) Committee has said.

Member of the committee and convener of the Roads and Bridges Sub-committee, Alhaji Kassim Bataiya made the disclosure in Shuarin, Jigawa State, after a joint inspection of the 101.365km project with the project implementers, the Federal Ministry of Work and contractor, Dantata & Sawoe Construction Company.

He explained that SURE-P has earmarked, in its 2012 budgetary provision, the sum of N4bn to ensure completion and delivery of the road by the December 2012 due extension date.

“The Federal Government considers roads as critical socio-economic infrastructures that must be provided to ease transportation and movement of people, goods and services,”

“The Federal Government, through the SURE-P, wants Nigerians to understand that it is committed to reinvesting its share of the withdrawn subsidy on fuel products into developing critical infrastructures for positive impact in the lives of the people.”

But Bataiya, who represents the National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) on the SURE-P committee, while commending the efforts so far put into the road, which falls under Section 1 of the 510km Kano-Maiduguri by Dantata & Sawoe expressed dissatisfaction with the snail’s pace of the construction works, warning that SURE-P would not tolerate any further failure on the part of the Federal Ministry of Works and the contractor to deliver the section to be completed by December 2012 as already agreed.

Earlier, the chief resident engineer, Kano-Shuarin Road Project, Engr. H.K. Sarjius told the SURE-P team that the contractor had done 33.4 per cent of the work.

“Areas of visible progress on work done are reflected in site clearance and topsoil removal, construction of two interchange flyovers and three river bridges, laying of stone-base and asphalt surfacing,” he said, adding that compensation payments had been fully completed to claimants from 0km in Kano to km 101.365 in Shuarin.

The Kano-Shuarin road dualisation contract was awarded to Dantata & Sawoe Construction Company in September 2006 with initial handover date of February 2010.