In reaction to the claims by Governor Alex Otti that his administration will be flagging off 19.2km Itungwa/Omoba road, the former Commisioner for finance Chief Obinna Oriaku said, the Otti administration had no single input in the project stating that the project is a world Bank Project, he narrated how the contract for the project which predates the Otti administration was initiated by the T.A Orji administration and the arrangements and counterpart funding paid by the Ikpeazu government. He advised Governor Otti’s government to endeavor to speak the truth and give honor to whom it is due, Chief Oriaku stated that left to Otti’s government no road in Ngwa will be featured.
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The untold story of Abia RAAMP and its flag off.
Abians are happy that this project is taking off after a long delay which will be boring to enumerate.
Most times people refutes stories or news of this government because of their strategy of ignoring all the jobs or efforts of people that were there before them.
The Oyibo that introduced modern government concepts understand why they said it is continuum.
That project was restarted in 2016. During TA adminstration, most projects that required counterpart funding were stopped due to mismangament of funds by the operators. In this case , we set up a committee to investigate what happened with the funds for this project. The report is still there .
Because of the importance of this world bank program RAAMP and others,we decided to follow up on these programmes including other world bank projects.
We came in during recession of 2015, funds were not enough to even pay salaries , not to talk about setting out funds for counterpart funds.
The Federal government through the DMO ( Debt Mgt Office ) had just banned commercial banks from granting any further facility to any State as they were processing bail out for states.
We decided we must source for for funds to commence these projects due to their importance.
These include; FADAMA. CSDP, NEWMAP and RAAMP.
The head of DMO (Debt Management office )then was Dr Abraham Nwankwo from Obowo in Imo state.
One Saturday around May 2016, when we got information that he came around for weekend. Emme Okoro then SSG , Emeka Ononiwu left for Obowo and pleaded with him to reconsider his stand and grant Abia exceptional approval to source for funds for the counter part fund for these projects listed above.
Zenith bank came to our rescue with N700m facility and the rest is history. As close as Hon Minister for FCT , Nyeso Wike who is the star Minster is to the President and power levers in this administration, it will take the FCT average of 4 years to consummate this transaction.
N300m was given to RAAMP as counterpart fund and N400 to NEWMAP. That marked the second journey of RAAMP
Abia was readmitted among participating states in RAAMP.
This project suffered many challenges as I went to their head office in Abuja with then PC Mr Babintion, at a time those that started with Abia state at inception concluded that phase and entered the second Phase.
Abia was migrated to the second phase which now included integrated Agricultural evacuation from rural areas as focus .
The money eventually came in to the CBN by adding Abia into the envelop system in 2022.
There were other internal issues which included sacking of the PC Mr Babintion by this government coupled with shenanigans of the operators and the award process that was truncated late 2022 to 2023, and of course, the general election . Gov Otti also sacked Enger Ogbonna that took over from Mr Babintion, all these contributed to the delay of the project.
The project entails reconstruction of about 500km in Abia , these roads are worth £60m with prospects of scaling up the amount due to current exchange rate .
The focus is to open up the rural roads that leads to remote farms and link roads to create access to market.
There are 3 types of roads .
(1). Virgin road construction
(2). scaling of old roads by reconstruction.
(3) linkage of rural roads by constructing culvert and bridges to open the roads .
The 19.2km Itungwa Omoba road was initially scheduled to take off from Itungwa, end but now Umoba .
We have not seen any deliberate effort by this government to construct any road in Isi ala Ngwa south , the supposed local government of our Governor .
Our intervention is to ensure this project is not appropriated as if its coming from the state. It is a world bank project which predates this administration.
The current state administration has no 1kobo contribution outside those initial investments made by the state before now.
This is a world bank project re- initiated in 2016, processed and awarded by last administration but cancelled , and reawarded, but being officially flagged off tommrrow 2nd October.
Today , We are happy Abia North have over 140km of roads linking Arochukwu, while the 8km Umuikaa to Umuene awarded over 8 months ago has been abandoned as contractor has demobilzed from site. ( You will see it on the road , that is if you can access Umuene from that road as its totally abandoned).
We will not allow anybody use world bank project to make up for the neglect of the supposed Governor’s local government.
It is instructive to note that our external borrowing automatically increases with the payment of this project.
This is to teach those that will say , we have not borrowed since we came or we have paid down. .
Like i said, It is sad that it took this long years to get here. However, we are ok the project is taking off, but if the choice of project was left to this administration, we know Itungwa and Umuoba would not have featured.
Obinna Oriaku
Ekwedike.
