By Jonathan Ugbal; Government House Correspondent
The signature projects of the Governor Ben Ayade’s administration received a boost on Tuesday, when Liebherr, a German equipment manufacturer began visits to the sites to ascertain the type of equipment suitable for the construction.
This will be the third meeting between both parties with Liebherr indicating interest to partner the State Government in a presentation to Governor Ben Ayade.
A member of the team and Managing Director, Seventy One Mining and Construction Nigeria limited, Oluchi Nwoko, says this is in continuation of Ayade’s visit to Switzerland where they held talks on the company investing on the 260 kilometers superhighway and deep seaport with a Memorandum of Understanding almost signed but delayed since they were yet to ascertain the type of equipment needed.
The delegation which was led by Rolf Bachmann told gentlemen of the press upon arrival in Calabar that they were going to visit the project sites to ascertain the type of equipment required for the construction.
“You know the deep seaport and the 260 kilometers highway needs quite a good number of sophisticated, heavy duty equipment for construction site and that is the reason why we are here to have a look on the site and my colleagues here can specify what kind of equipment is needed” Rolf said.
Rolf further added that they have met with the State Government team twice and it was time to really get to the sites as according to him, “We have seen a lot of maps and drawings but in other that my colleagues will specify the machines, we really need to go to the site.”
The inspection team led by the Special Assistant Technical, Eric Akpo later visited the site for the deep seaport and are expected to also visit several points where the superhighway is been constructed.
It will be recalled that Governor Ben Ayade had announced during his inauguration, plans to construct a deep seaport and a superhighway in his bid to reconstruct the state’s economy and decouple it from total dependence on the meager monthly allocation collected from the federal government.
Initial issues surrounding the environmental impact assessment caused a delay in the groundbreaking ceremony which was later performed by President Muhammadu Buhari in his first official working visit as the Nigeria’s President.
The projects which are expected to gulp in excess of 1 trillion Naira, Ayade says, will be almost wholly financed by investors as he intends to prove that there are several ways to develop the required infrastructure to stimulate the economy.