By Uche Amunike
In a bid to live up to the expectations of Anambra residents, the Anambra Road Maintenance Agency (ARMA), has begun to fulfil her promise to embark on massive road repairs when the rains recede.
Speaking to Fides at the Ifite Road, in Awka on Thursday, where road repairs were ongoing, the Managing Director/CEO of ARMA, Engr. Emeka Okoye, stated that the only reason for the delay in patching the potholes so far, was the rains. According to him, nobody did road repairs with Asphalt during the rainy season because of the unfriendly nature of our soil which retains a lot of water. Recall that the agency resorted to using concrete slabs and afterwards, concrete to patch the roads which generated a lot of controversy.
However, ARMA promised the Ndi Anambra to exercise some patience till the rains stopped so that the agency would resort to using asphalt to carry out road repairs.
He averred that the three Senatorial Zones in the state were presently undergoing massive rehabilitation and that before December, work must have been completely done with, so that people will find movement indeed very easy.
The state government on her part, has shown her commitment to the problem of bad roads by giving the directive that Anambra roads constructed henceforth, would have drainages which will go a long way in reducing the erosion menace on the roads. This has been achieved by Governor Obiano through his Initiative of setting up Anambra State Clean Up and Drainage and Forest Protection, which ensures that drainages were de-silted in order to avoid flooding, potholes and subsequently bad roads. This initiative thrives under the Ministry of Environment, headed by Mr Chido Obidiegwu.
The government further engaged contractors to achieve their objective of rehabilitation and patching of potholes across the states, a project which they would use the aid of Paver Machines to make the work not just easier, but faster. He added that the engagements of teeming youths in the state in the road repairs also served as a ploy to get them engaged meaningfully as it offered them a source of livelihood.
The massive repairs are presently ongoing at Roban Stores Road, Aroma Junction to Ifite Road, Works Road from Ziks Avenue, Udoka Road from the expressway and the Club road.
In his words, the ARMA boss has this to say about his Agency’s plans:
‘Our target is to repair 2 million square metres of potholes between now and the month of December.’ He didn’t give an exact estimation of what it would cost, but he did affirm that it would cost the government hundreds of millions of naira to repair the potholes.
