Lorine Emenike
The Rivers State Commissioner for Water Resources and Rural Development, Tamunosisi Gogo Jaja has threatened to arrest the chief executive officer of Marcuse Ruse Limited, a contractor handling Odioku Water Project in Ahoada West Local Government Area for sabotaging government’s effort towards the provision of potable water for the residence of the area.
Gogo-Jaja who made this known during an unscheduled visit to ascertain the level of work on the water facility under construction by the state government regretted the abandonment of the project by an indigenous contractor.
The commissioner while nothing that the action of the contractor will have an adverse effect on the people, recalled that the ministry had earlier visited the site in April and gave the contractor a three months grace period to handover the project to the government and the people of the community, having been paid 90% of the total sum.
“We are here to confirm to ourselves whether he has returned to the site, whether work is ongoing. But since we came here, between the last period we were here and now no single job has been done.
“So the ministry has confirmed that the contractor has abandoned this project. And let me say it may have happened in any other government, but not in this new Rivers vision government. No contractor will abandon our project without prosecution. So we will be left with no other option than to arrest him and prosecute him, that is the only option the ministry is left with.
“And I can assure you and assure the people of Odioku that we will ensure that the contractor who abandoned this site will be prosecuted. Because if you can’t do this for your community, that is to say, you can’t do this for any community”
The state water resources and rural development commissioner stated that with the payment of 90% contract sum, there was no reason whatsoever for the contractor to complain and assured the people of Odioku that the water facility will be delivered to them.
“The chairman and chief executive officer of the company that has the job is from this community and that is to say that whatever he was doing he wasn’t just doing because he was awarded a contract, he was doing it to himself and to his people.
“And for a contractor to collect from government 90% of the total contract sum, the ministry can as well say we have paid him 100% because what we have with us is just retention fee, so there is no excuse, there is no reason to abandon this project.
“We were here about two months plus for inspection and we discovered that he has abandoned site. And the state executive council took a decision on this project and directed that it should either return to the site or face prosecution”
“Now we needed to be procedural, the ministry wrote to him and gave him three Months to handover this project to the government and to the people of this community.
“And as you can see, the site is locked, the project is abandoned”
Some residents of Odioku community and workers at the water facility in an interview with newsmen revealed that there had been old backlog of salaries by the contractor and called on the state government to compel the contractor to complete the project and pay them their wages.
“We are getting justice because he’s doing us injustice in this community, we are not enjoining this contract and he is owing us so much, he refused to pay us and we are hungry.
“This man that abandoned this work, the government should hold him accountable, and he should come and pay us, we worked for him and he doesn’t want to pay us and if we confront him, he will send the police to arrest us. What we expect the state government to do is to ensure he completes this project and pay the workers”
They called on the state government to henceforth arrest and prosecute any contractor that fails to execute projects after collecting contract sum.
