They Need Psychiatric Examination – Opposition
The Rural Access and Mobility Project (RAMP) Task Manager, African Development Bank (ADB), Mr. Remi-Cally Okoro, has rated the Cross River-Rural Access Mobility Project (RAMP) the best in the country and advised other states where the project was ongoing to emulate Governor Liyel Imoke.
Okoro made the remark in Calabar at the showcasing of CR-RAMP, which he said the state had given another dimension by ensuring its roads were asphalted.
He described CR-RAMP as a flagship project that had set standards among states where the project was ongoing.
He explained that the ADB was an African experience to transform rural areas by creating and adding value to the lives of its beneficiaries.
Okoro maintained that by asphalting its RAMP projects, Cross River had shown its commitment to making life meaningful to rural dwellers, thereby boosting their economy through transportation.
In his address, Governor Liyel Imoke said the RAMP programme had created great value for agriculture and as such, the state had no excuse not to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) target of 2015.
Imoke disclosed that the state had set aside N13 billion when the project commenced in 2006, following the adoption of the Rural Travel and Transport Policy (RTTP) as a means of addressing the challenges in rural transportation while the ADB put in about N7 billion.
He said the project was important and would record tremendous success by 2013, so the state had no reason not to extend it beyond then because of its potential for rural expansion and job creation.
The governor explained that the state had to engage the services of five additional engineers to ensure its success under phase-one because phase-two was expected to cover 500 kilometres of road, which was quite significant.
He said the ADB Nigeria-Cameroun road project was of great importance to the continent due to its capability of boosting trade between the two countries.
The Commissioner for Works, Mr. Legor Idagbor, in a welcome address, said CR-RAMP covered 474 kilometres of rural roads in the state.
According to Idagbor, the 474 kilometres of roads were originally designed to be laterite roads but Imoke insisted that they should be asphalted with the state financing the additional cost.
The commissioner explained that the CR-RAMP had used the set criteria in constructing 27 roads across the state.
He said by so doing, it explained that Imoke placed emphasis on the project because 70 per cent of the state was rural.
Idagbor assured the ADB of the state quality control, quality assurance and budgetary allocation to ensure completion while expressing that the spate of work would be hastened.
The National Coordinator, RAMP, Abuja, Mr. Ubandoma Ularamu described CR-RAMP as a testimony to government to ensure an all-year-round road to boost rural transformation.
Ularamu said RAMP was part of the transformation agenda of the Federal Government, which had been test-run in some states.
But opposition politicians in the State carpeted ADB saying that the ADB officials who made the assessment were being economical with the truth. According to the former governorship candidate of the Hope Democratic Party, Dr. Theo Onyuku, “the claim by ADB is most dubious, most fraudulent, most baseless assessment grossly not in keeping with the stark reality on the ground.
Hope Democrat Party (HDP) ask the fraudulent ADB assessors, where are the rural roads that we haven’t seen? The roads that have been washed away by just a season of rainfall? rural roads that are currently impassable and unusable even by bikes? Roads built with no compaction? Lorries that should convey agricultural products are barred from the use of the roads with iron barricades.”
“these sub-standard roads are not seen even in Iraq, Somalia and Rwanda. We insist the rural roads cannot stand any probe because a government has clearly defrauded the state in the award of contracts since 2007. We insist the rural roads are non-existent in CRS and the ADB officers need urgent psychiatric examination because they may be suffering from complex partial seizure of trance-like state”.
When crossriverwatch contacted the Minority Leader in the State House of Assembly, Hon. Alex Irek (ACN), he refrained from commenting because according to him, he does not know the criteria the ADB assessors used for their assessment.tarred road3