The Commissioner of Public Works and Infrastructure, Arc. Ibrahim Hamza, has said the Kaduna state governor, Uba Sani, inherited liabilities of unpaid contractors, over-invoicing and lack of documentation in roads construction, as well as low capacity utilisation in the water sector.
Arc Hamza, who disclosed this at the quarterly ministerial press briefing at Sir Kashim Ibrahim House, however, said that the governor had overcome most of the challenges.
He pointed out that the present administration thought out-of-the box and came up with workable solutions that enabled the continuation of inherited projects and the initiation of new ones.
‘’Since the coming of this administration in the last 22 months, the government of Senator Uba Sani has done remarkably well. We have tried, notwithstanding the bedeviling challenges and obstacles that we encountered in the ministry itself and all the parastatals.
‘’We have largely overcome almost all the challenges that we met. These challenges are not limited to liabilities inherited, vandalisation, lack of proper documentation. Contracts were awarded without documentation. Some were over-inflated and there were no records,‘’ he said.
‘’So, we had to just sit down, thought out-of-the-box, and to see how we can remedy all these things. So, we are battling between the challenge of remedying the wrongs that were created in the past and making progress. But thank God, everything is going well,’’ he said.
The Commissioner, however, said Governor Uba Sani’s administration had awarded 78 road projects, totalling 775 kilometers, in the last 21 months in spite of the challenges.
According to him, 21 of these roads ‘’have already been completed and have been put into use, thereby creating more economic activities across the 23 local governments.’’
‘’Last week, we also launched the completion of the Kaduna Bridge from Kabala Costain to Aliyu Makama Road, which will decongest traffic on the major road artery of Ahmadu Bello Way-Junction Road,’’ he added.
Arc Hamza lamented that there were a lot of challenges beneath the Urban Renewal Programme of the previous administration because of the liabilities that his ministry inherited.