How activities of oil-rich Delta communities affect quality, projects completion – Contractor

Aboh, Delta – A contractor operating in the Niger Delta, Engr Barnabas Osigidi has narrated how the activities of youths and community leaders are hampering rapid infrastructural development in the region.

Osigidi, who spoke to BENDEL Mirror recently in Aboh, Ndokwa East local government area of Delta state appeals to community leaders to support contractors to deliver standard projects in line with contract specifications.

"If you send a contractor to do a job in the Niger-Delta areas, against what occur in the South-West, communities in the Niger Delta will immediately duplicate themselves into autonomous areas. So the contractor has more to deal with, because road construction is transversing the area or the contractor mobile sites. That is how the contractor will be tasked to pay matching ground money, freedom to operate money. The communities will impose workers and how much to pay on the contractor. Some of these workers collect money, but don't even report for work.

"They collect money from contractor to pass shrine. Pay to cross stream or culvert. They force you to buy at higher rates Sand and wood. If you buy cement or granite from outside the communities, they charge you for every truck load. If they sell sand, they sell at higher prices than market rates, sometimes these are not full loads.", Osigidi narrated

He continued, "Chiefs and landlords money, and many others. That is if the contractor is not spending all its profit to provide jtf security, else they kidnap the workers.

"Forgetting the road is for them and not for the use of the contractor. That the road will increase the value of their lands. Reduce transportation costs. Enable them to take their farm produce to the market for sale and improve of their economy. Rather they see the road construction as a benefit of the contractor and must share from the sum."