Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, has directed the contractor handling an Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes, ACReSAL, flood and erosion control project to increase equipment and manpower to speed up construction. The project covers a 15.2-kilometre corridor, including 3.2 kilometres of feeder channels, but has so far achieved only 7.2 per cent completion.
The intervention is being carried out within the same micro-catchment as several other projects under the ACReSAL programme.
During an inspection of the project yesterday, Governor Bala Mohammed expressed dissatisfaction with the contractor’s level of mobilisation, stressing that the project had adequate funding and should not suffer unnecessary delays.
He disclosed that the state government had already released 40 per cent of the contract sum and urged the contractor to show greater commitment and capacity towards completing the project.
The governor recalled that the project was initially conceived during the administration of former governor Ahmed Adamu Mu’azu, describing the current intervention as a major humanitarian effort aimed at protecting communities, especially those located along riverbeds and other areas vulnerable to flooding and erosion.
Also speaking, the ACReSAL Task Team Leader, Dr Joy Egena, commended the quality of work completed so far but raised concerns over the slow pace of implementation.
Egena described the project as one of the largest ACReSAL interventions in terms of its scope, scale and cost, stressing that the contractor needed to deploy more equipment and manpower to close the implementation gap and meet the scheduled completion date.
Responding to the concerns, the contractor attributed the slow pace of work largely to the rainy season and assured the governor that mobilisation had commenced.
He said four teams would be deployed to work simultaneously on different sections of the project, alongside additional equipment and manpower to accelerate construction.
The contractor expressed confidence that the project would be completed by March or April.
Source: ACReSAL
