By Chris Ochayi

UYO — To ensure that a durable and quality road was delivered to the people, the Joint Committee of the National Assembly, on Niger Delta Affairs, has advised the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs to shift the December 2014 completion dateline for the East-West Road project to December, 2015.

The committee said that there was no need to rush the project described as “massive,” noting that the earlier date may not be realistic because of inadequate funding and environmental challenges confronting the project.

The committee also challenged the Federal Government to take the issue of sourcing for alternative funds for the project very serious, so as  to complement the efforts of the ministry to deliver the over N332 billion project on time.

Deplorable East-West road

However, the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Elder Godsday Orubebe, insisted that the project would be ready  for commissioning by December 2014, following frantic moves by the ministry to secure over N141 billion being the balance of the contract sum.

The minister, who reiterated that the deadline was attainable, said that the ministry had secured a credit facility of N50 billion from the African Development Bank, ADB, to complete the project.

Chairman, Senate Committee on Niger Delta Affairs, Senator James Manager and his counterpart at the House of Representatives, Warman Ogoriba, who led other members of the committee on oversight function to the project site, described the dualisation project as massive and warned that there was no reason to rush same.

Senator Manager, who commended the Niger Delta Ministry for the work done so far on the East-West Road, while addressing journalists in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, shortly after the inspecting the road  stretching from Warri in Delta State to Oron in Akwa Ibom, said both committees had realised that the project still required enormous work to be done.

Senator Manager, who said that the committees did not blame anyone over the fate of the project, said anything worth doing was worth doing well, and that there was no reason to rush the work.