Portplus Limited, a marine service company, is on the news again for resuming what is been described as shoddy job on the N736.4-million Ikpide-Irri road project, Isoko South local government area of Delta state awarded by governor Ifeanyi Okowa to the firm.
Youths and concerned indigenes of the riverine community, have raised the alarm over what they called the continued poor quality of job being constructed in their community by the marine company owned by an indigene of the community.
The concrete pavement road contract which is said to have been awarded in March 2017 by the state governor to his crony, has become subject of series of controversies for the past several months due to the poor quality of job being carried out by contractor who is an indigene of the community.
It would be recalled that series of mass protests had greeted the project since inception and the Delta state government through the commissioner for works, James Aguoye, had during inspection last year certified the ongoing controversial N736.4-million Ikpide-Irri road project as substandard following low quality of materials been used.
Irked by the fresh poor quality of job over the weekend after the company resumed from its rainy season break, the community’s concerned indigenes stormed the construction site when the news of the shoddy job filtered into town despite all past warnings, they raised an alarm, condemning and challenging the workers to desist forthwith from the continuation of the shoddy job on the road or face mass protest.
While concerned indigenes of the community especially the youths continued to stand their grounds for a standard quality of work on the road, an elder brother to the contractor who doubles as President-General of the community, Michael Omojefe, had last year reportedly said that the contract was a ‘kola-nut’ given to his younger brother by the governor for huge financial support rendered to the governor during his first tenure election.
“Governor Okowa has always told communities to as a matter of importance, take charge of government projects in their communities because they are the end users of such projects and for that we the youths and other concerned indigenes of Ikpide-Irri decided to wage war against substandard work on the road project awarded to a son of the soil. He want to maximize big profits to the detriment of his people, what a shame.
“This fight against the substandard job being carried out by Portplus limited, a marine service company has been on since last year which made the governor to mandate the works commissioner to go for inspection of the road and the commissioner was surprised with the poor quality of job and immediately he declared the job substandard and warned the contractor to deliver a standard job.”, one of the indigenes told our correspondent.
Some of the company’s workers on site confided in our correspondent, that the quality of job being described as poor was as a result of the alleged refusal of the company’s chairman and chief executive officer, (CEO), to release adequate funds after receipt of funds from the state government and that the “current poor quality” was what they were told to maintained.
According to one of the workers who pleaded for anonymity, “Even we the workers on site know that the job we are doing is very shoddy but it is not our fault. Like the recent funds our boss, owner of the company, Portplus received from the state government was diverted to his personal use and managed to releases peanuts to us to work with. So how do you use peanuts to deliver good quality job.?”, the worker queried.
A visit by our correspondent to the site, it was observed that road stone basing and casting were in poor quality, while the quantity of the sharp sand was more than the cement which the indigenes condemned in its entirety, but the CLO, one Favour Udezi, said to have been singlehandedly appointed by the chairman of Portplus, described the poor stone basing and the casting as the best standard ever.
The contract sum, it was learnt has been increased following the upward review of the job by the state government recently.
Speaking on the issue, Portplus site engineer, Frank Nnadi, who was not on ground, passionately appealed for the story to be dropped, saying “I expected them to draw my attention to whatever observation made for immediate correction, not by going public, please I am appealing to you drop the story. We shall make all necessary corrections.”
Contacted, the Delta state commissioner for works, James Aguoye, promised to send down a team of engineers from the ministry to the site to see things for themselves and report back to him.
