by crossriverwatch admin
Cross River State Governor, Mr. Liyel Imoke is soliciting a five per cent increment on the current statutory allocations to State Governments to enable them rehabilitate federal roads in their domain than waiting endlessly for Abuja to effect repairs on them.
At a Town Hall meeting and presentation of score card in Calabar, the governor said for want of resources the State Government was unable to carry out comprehensive turnaround maintenance on the Calabar-Itu Highway and the Calabar-Ikom Highway.
The sum under the envisaged 5%, he suggested, could be channelled through the Federal Ministry of Works from where it could accessed using the due process mechanism so that there would be no misappropriation or outright embezzlement.
Imoke also called for the declassification of Calabar-Itu road so that the State Government becomes fully in charge of it and thus responsible to the needs of its people and those of the nation considering the economic viability of the highway to national development.
“If they can add another 5 per cent to our allocation, we can do the Federal Government roads. The challenge before us is getting Federal Government to allocate more resources to us to handle federal roads. I want Calabar-Itu road to be declassified.
“The challenge to us is getting the Federal Government to allocate more resources for us to handle the road project”, he said.
On dredging of Calabar seaport, the governor said he and other leaders of the state had on several occasions agitated for the dredging of the seaport by Federal Government but unfortunately the dredging carried out in the past was not properly done.
“I was told that they had awarded the contract to Nigeria Ports Authority and the private sector to do the dredging of the Calabar channels. We are hoping that the channel would be dredged before the end of the year by the grace of God. Our daughter Senator Florence Ita Giwa is a member of the Board’’, he said.
The governor revealed that Calabar-Ikom/ Ogoja road had been captured in the 2014 budget for rehabilitation but regretted that before now the East-West road was terminating at Akwa Ibom instead of Cross River until the President broke the news to him that the East West was now terminating in Calabar.
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