Experts harp on construction of access roads

Instead of waiting for mass housing projects and provision of the entire infrastructure required in the rural areas, an expert in the building construction sector has said government should focus attention on the construction and rehabilitation roads in the villages of Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
This was the position of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), S&M Nigeria Limited; Solomon Ogunshola who insisted that access roads alone in the rural communities are all that is required adding that it will be cheaper and faster for government.
He reasoned that if good roads were provided, Abuja residents who have already acquired plots of land in these localities can afford to build their own houses, sink a well and use generator for electricity instead of paying huge rent in the already congested city centre.
“Upgrade the roads in the rural communities and people will build their own houses” he said while saying that a satellite town like Kuje is close to the Abuja town and wondering why people should prefer living in Masaka in Nasarawa State instead of Kuje.
He said the reason is attributable to the nature of the road in the area.
He said: “Let us build roads somewhere necessary to control traffic congestion and development will take a new turn in the FCT”.
His company, according to him, as done a number of road projects in the FCT in the past twelve years and he can authoritatively confirm that road construction in the territory is not cumbersome.
“We have done roads in FCT and trans – border states.
We have been involved in constructing rural roads of the same standards with those approved by Julius Berger, Dantata and Sawoe for several years in Abaji, Kuje and Bwari area councils as well as in the Municipal area council both for government and private corporate organizations.
He pointed out that, FCT have a good soil adding that when we were in Hadejia we found out that we could not get laterite around.
We have to travel for about 200km before we could get laterite which is not the situation in FCT.
You can get laterite within 10km but imagine transportation of laterite for 200km.
The FCT soil is also a good soil for projects are fast and if any road project in FCT does not stand the test of time, then it is the fault of the contractor,” he said.
The communities, Mr.
Ogunshola stated are friendly and do not place unnecessary demand on contractors while on site.
He said they don’t attack adding that: “In all the area where we worked, they were enthusiastic aboutthe work.
They want to move from their own local community to the urban area on good road because most of their roads are not tarred.
They encourage our worker and did not attack them.
The support from locals helped us tremendously”.
He equally cautioned on deploying public private partnership in road construction saying inconsistency in government policy is a challenge.
“It is difficult because every government comes with its own policy.
Inconsistency in government policies is there.
Each government comes with its new ideas and sometimes they will not continue with the predecessor’s programmes and projects.
Construction companies are afraid of their investment going down the drain since contract review affects private sector”