Oshiomhole sacks 3 engineers over road projects

By Simon Ebegbulem
BENIN—EDO State Governor, Mr Adams Oshiomhole, yesterday, sacked three engineers over poor supervision of some  state’s road projects.

He also condemned the quality of work done by one of the contractors, Borino Prono, at Otuo-Ihievbe-Ogbe in Owan East Local Government Area of the state. He warned the contractor to do a quality job or his contract will be revoked.

Governor Oshiomhole, who was inspecting ongoing projects in the state, gave a hint on why the state Commissioner for Works, Engr. Erhauyi Obayagbona, was fired few days ago. He said that he noticed that some of the culverts were not properly supervised by the Commissioner.

While announcing the sack, Governor Oshiomhole expressed regrets that engineers attached to the state Ministry of Works connive with contractors to cheat  the state and vowed that the government will sack any government engineer found wanting.

At Otuo Bridge, he said he will employ the services of an external engineer to verify the quality of job done on the bridge, warning that the state government will not  pay any contractor, who failed to execute his job according to specifications.

The Governor also frowned at the some of the water projects at Ivbiaro and Iyamho, in Edo North district and assured that the contractors who handled the projects must be brought back to site before their money is paid to them.

While explaining the cause for the shoddy job done by Boroni Prono, the contractor explained that the job was handed over to a sub contractor and that the specifications, which are being executed were approved by the sacked Commissioner, Obayagbona.

Oshiomhole who was visibly angry at this point,  due to the contradicting reports given by both the engineer hired by the government to monitor the projects and the state government engineers, said,  “this is why people prefer to  hire foreign engineers because our own engineers, some of them useless, connive with corrupt politicians and contractors do dupe the state. But I have said that this government cannot take such nonsense.

“That is why the government pays so much to get a quality job and we cannot tolerate that after spending so much,  we now get a sub standard job” he said.