By Sodiq Omolaoye

The House of Representatives Committee on Area Councils and Ancillary Matters, has raised concerns over the engineering designs of some road intervention projects by the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA).

The committee chairman, Frederick Agbedi expressed the concerns on Thursday during its oversight visit to the 15 kilometre A2-Pai road, and the 11 kilometre Yangoji-Sukuku road, in the Kwali Area Council of the FCT, being executed by the Satellite Towns Development Department (STDD) of the FCTA as under the emergency development interventions in the Area Councils.

Resident Engineer of the STDD, Engr. Ibrahim Isa Kangiwa, had informed the committee that the design of the A2-Pai road was jointly done by the department’s experts and those of the contractor; ZEBERCED Construction Limited, explaining further that the agreement was for a one-year maintenance, after which the Area Councils will take over.

He noted that the project estimated at N30 billion total cost will have solar powered street lights installed.

The committee was, however, not satisfied with oral explanations on the engineering design, insisting that the agency supply the paper work to its secretariat by next Monday, as it also expressed fears on the safety of the planned street lights, as substantial portions of the 15-kilometre road were yet unoccupied.

Addressing journalists after inspecting the two roads, Chairman of committee, Agbedi said “We’ve been on oversight since yesterday, oversighting the FCT Satellite Towns Development Department’s projects.

“We have seen a number of roads, today we started from the Pai road and now we are at Sukuku, and I think develooment has gotten closer to our people.

“We have seen the much that the minister and the minister of state and their officers have done based on appropriations.

“We however, had some reservations on some of he issues; we observed that some things may have been done better, as to costs, as to designs and further amendments as to appropriations that could have been done better, but we have resolved to engage with the minister to make sure that we have a better way of addressing those observations that we have made in the course of visiting.

“We will say that they have done well, the leaders of the ministry have done well. No one is perfect but we need to get certain things done right so that we should be able to know budget subheads, costs of projects, extensive design of projects and then the implementation.

“Because if you don’t have an extensive design of a project, you wouldn’t know to the extent which a contractor is completing the project . These observations, we will take home as a committee and later interface with the ministry of the FCT and the department to make sure that we render good services to the people of the FCT.”