Stories by Musa Adamu
Supervising Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Arc. Darius Ishaku, has said duplication of projects between the ministry and other agencies was the bane of the ministry.
The Minister spoke at the 2014 National Technical Conference of the Institute of Appraisers and Cost Engineers (IACE) yesterday in Abuja.
As a Key not Speaker, the Minister’s lecture was titled: “Valuation, Cost Engineering and Engineering Economy Perspective on Sustainable Infrastructure.”
Providing insight into the projects execution in his ministry, the Minister noted duplication of projects in the region had led to the inadequate physical planning for infrastructure in the region.
He said the projects were usually duplicated between the ministry and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), state oil producing commissions, federal ministries, MDGs projects and so on.
To get around this problem, the Minister suggested development efforts must ensure effective and appropriate planning to prevent waste and deliver value for money.
He also said the various agencies and his ministry had resolve to meet and streamlined their activities so as to be aware of what each of them were doing in what area at a particular area.
“Similarly, the ministry is building a data bank of all projects programmes in the region. All these point to the fact that the ministry is devoting adequate time to planning so as to avoid the past experience of haphazard development,” he said.
Speaking further on the challenges faced by the ministry in its bid to develop the infrastructure of the region, the ministry identified funding as one them.
“As the region’s population soars, demand for additional infrastructure in all sectors also increases. Unfortunately, the government resources can hardly meet the increasing demand.”
He informed that government had decided to rely on additional sources of funds from institutions such as African Development Bank (AfDB), the SURE-P, Bank of Industry (BoI) and Infrastructural Development Bank (IDB) to complement budgetary allocations in the provision of infrastructure.
Commenting on the flagship project of the ministry, Ishaku identified weather conditions, unsuitable sub grade and road alignment as some of the challenges stunting the progress on the East-West road project.
To this end, he recommended adequate funding and friendly investment environment should be evolved and the public the private partnership mode of financing should be embraced.
