At  a recent media parley in her office, Barrister (Mrs) Orezi Esievo, Commissioner for Special Duties (Special Infrastructure), DeltaState said despite challenges here and there, the state governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan has kept his electoral promises to Deltans. Our Tejiri Ebikeme was at the media parley. Read on.

Some Deltans are saying that Uduaghan has not kept his electoral promises. What is your  reaction to it?

The State Governor has been able to make good his promises. I want to refer to his inaugural speech he made on the 29th of May, 2011 where he made reference to the construction of brand new primary schools, equipping them, total rehabilitation of secondary and primary schools across the three senatorial districts. In that inaugural speech, he mentioned the total rehabilitation and remodeling of EkuBaptistHospital, the Brand New Construction of the Maternal and Child Healthcare Centre at Warri and Ekpan. These two facilities have hundred beds each, dedicated mother and child hospital. These are amongst the so many things he talked about, but I am just trying to zero down on these ones because these are some of the goals and mandate that our Excellency has given to us. And by the glory of God, May 29, 2013 he has been able to keep his promises. The model primary schools have been constructed, some are completed, and some have been commissioned, while others are at various stages of completion. The fifty primary schools that he embarked on in terms of rehabilitation and re-modeling, he has completed 35 of them and the other 15 are about 80% completed. I want to humbly submit here that, aside what the Directorate of Infrastructure is doing in terms of schools, hospitals and even roads – of course we have some roads like the trans-Warri Ode Itsekiri Access Roads and Bridges, a 23 kilometres road with 23 bridges. Sapale Agbigborodo/Arowon road, 11 kilometers road with 2 bridges – the second bridge is far gone – we were there last week, very impressive and by the grace of God by 2015 we will be driving into Agbigborodo. And of course it is a very epic 149 kilometres road and I always say, it takes a heart of gold to embark on a very ambitious project because that 149 kilometres road is approximately 150 kilometres road. And because it is a dualized road it is a 300 kilometers road stretch put together. That is a Federal Government road that Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan actually started in 2007. And today work has gone very far and impressive on that road, especially that section A and B. this is just about opening up the rural communities, integrating the rural communities and of course latching on to the very economic viability and the market that is situated at this other side of Onitsha, one of the biggest markets in West Africa. So like I was saying, aside what the Directorate of Infrastructure is doing in the area of infrastructures, the Ministry of Basic and Primary Education and SUBEB (State University and Basic Education Board), have also undertaken a lot of interventions in schools. We have about one thousand Primary schools in DeltaState and out of all these there has been one intervention or the other in over 350 schools in DeltaState. All these to the credit of Dr. Uduaghan who started in 2007 in a very hostile terrain – of course you know what happened and culminated in the re-run election, re-election, and today, two years into his second tenure he has done so much in the midst of his first four years and with all the distractions that happened, he was able to complete the International Airport in Asaba – though it is still under construction, today we are using the airport to the glory of God. We have other big roads that are going on under the Ministry of Works. We have the Effurun/Osubi road, we have the Ugbenukoko road, we have the Ekiugbo road that has been completed in Ughelli and of course we have the Sapele/ Agbigborodo road, the Trans Warri/Ode Itsekiri and access bridges, the One Hundred and Forty Nine kilometers Ughelli/Asaba dualization road that I like calling three hundred kilometres road in one stretch, and so many more. This is the spirit of the anniversary of a man who came out in 2007, a Medical Doctor, made specific promises in his inaugural speech in May 29, 2011 and today June 2013 most of these promises have been fulfilled. We have also embarked on junctions improvement work. If you live in Warri you will know what I am talking about. Right now Enerhen Junction is undergoing massive construction. What is going to happen in Enerhen Junction is going to be mind-blowing at the end of the day – Truly Urban Renewal–Delta Urban Renewal strategy. We have other eleven junctions and Enerhen Junction is just one of them. We have Ekpan Junction, Airport Road Junction, Cemetery Road Junction, Deco Junction, Avenue, Traffic Light Junction here in Asaba, Cable Junction and others. They are thirty in numbers and they are in Warri and Asaba, though we have a lot of urban centers, the key ones are Warri and Asaba.

The other day, we went out for projects inspection in four polytechnics that His Excellency is building – one in Bomadi, Aboh, Abigborodo and Sapele were drenched to our boots, it was amazing. You have to contend with the difficult terrain before you could be able to construct a road or build in these areas. Trans Warri-Ode-Itsekiri and access road and bridges; more than five kilometres have been constructed and the construction of this road alone has brought in private people, Matrix Energy for example. When road is open businesses come in and that create economic activities for the people living in that area, it creates jobs in these areas. And I want to say that in all these projects that His Excellency initiated, they have created more than seven thousand jobs. The thing is that you will not even know unless you take care of all these tasks. But we have been able to pick the number of people working in schools and not less than twenty persons work in the construction of a school. From those who do the mixing, the artisans, those who sell sand and the rest of them, jobs are being created for Deltans in the process. Jobs are being created regularly now for the communities and when you put all these together, you will find out that in construction alone, jobs are created and this is what makes the middle class to come back. I always say that in the time past there was a wide gap between the rich and the poor. But today Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan has been able to bridge that gap in DeltaState. Now you have the middle class and whether you like it or not it is growing because they are the ones who get these jobs, they are the people who set up SME’s under the Micro Credit Scheme. The Micro Credit Scheme is very robust in DeltaState and that has been able to bring back the middle class and bridge the gap between the rich and the poor. For all these constructions a lot of people have been employed. EkuBaptistHospital has a lot of people working there, in Warri it is the same and all the schools aside from the contractors who supply one material or the other have been able to put food on their table with these monies. Some have been able to send their children to school; build houses and buy cars. And that is really what governance is all about – jobs creation – and that is what Dr. Uduaghan has been able to do in DeltaState.

On Health Sector

We all know how EkuBaptistHospital used to be; at least I used that hospital when I was a little girl. This hospital is more than sixty-five years old. It was set up by the Baptist missionaries. It started as a dispensary but when they left, the community took over the hospital, they were unable to run the facilities and they applied to the state government and two years ago, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, being an experienced Medical Doctor with a foresight for quality healthcare delivery took over this hospital, and today it is about 78 percent completed. Total rehabilitation and remodeling of Eku Baptist Hospital with brand new state of the art equipment that include CT scan; the children wards is like a nursery; we have the Dental section and we have a private ward and a VIP section.

MCC (Mother and ChildCareCenters) Warri, His Excellency is constructing two of these facilities; the MCC in Warri and that of Ekpan. The Warri MCC is completed and it is ready for commissioning. The Ekpan MCC has hundred beds but it is not a storey building. Schools are being constructed across the three senatorial districts and so many of them have been completed. The IgbuduPrimary School is one of them and I love the school, it is very beautiful. The thrust for this administration is to create a conducive environment for our children to go to school. The one in Asaba was commissioned by Alhaji Bamanga Tukur. AtuwatsePrimary School is also practically completed; the furniture and other things are in place. We have IgbuduPrimary School, MosogarPrimary School, IgbogidiModelPrimary School, OkirigwePrimary School at Sapele, AbigborodoModelPrimary School. And the beautiful thing about these schools is that they are fully equipped. About 40 thousand benches are provided by NDDC and this is the beautiful synergy between NDDC and DeltaState. And of course the Commissioner representing us in NDDC is working hand in hand with Delta State Government. The Abu-Ator Primary was the first primary school that was completed under the rehabilitation phase of His Excellency and I love the school. We actually went there and we saw the school and we decided to bring everything down and it has been turned into a brand new school. Abu-Ator is opposite Ogbogbonogo market in Asaba. And his Excellency also talked about sporting facilities for all the schools and of course Delta is number one in the world in terms of sports. So we want to catch them young and that is why we have sporting facilities in all the schools.

What are some of the major challenges?

The major challenge we have in these works is with the communities. Some communities have been very difficult and I must say that communities in the central and south are some of the major challenges we have. Communities in Delta North are very cooperative and contractors do not want to go to Central and South. They want to work only in the North and that is not good for our people because it makes us anti-development and we always make it known to them and even the Governor create time to talk to them. The other challenge is the fact that apart from being hostile to contractors, they want contractors to give them money, they do not want to work, they just want you to settle them and even when you settle them, it is more problems and more problems. You have vandalization of property; we saw this in AgboModelPrimary School, IgbuduPrimary School, OkugbePrimary School. They tear down doors, windows; they cut burglary and carry them away. It is amazing some of the things that happen. We will use this opportunity to appeal to our mothers, fathers, communities that these schools were constructed by his Excellency for their own good. They have to own these projects because if you do not see these projects as your own and feel that you have a stake then you will not protect it. We all have to protect these projects to see that it last long for our children. We also have to be very friendly with the contractors.

Worth of projects?

For the Primary and Secondary Schools, we have expended about seven billion naira and it is from the Bond market.

The schools are beautiful now, are you putting any measures in place to make sure that they are well maintained even after the tenure of Governor Uduaghan?

Absolutely, the Ministry for Basic and Primary Education are the primary beneficiaries of these schools. They are the ones who generated the lists of schools that should be totally rehabilitated since they know these school and they are under them. I know that the Commissioner for Basic and Primary Education will have a budget for the maintenance of these schools. Ideally, every two years these schools should have minor repairs like painting or fixing bad windows. The same thing goes for the Model schools.

How does your directorate ensure that there is no conflict of interest between you and other ministries?

I get that question a lot. There is no conflict. You see, His Excellency came in 2011 and decided that he is going to set up a directorate to fast track the completion of basic infrastructures. So the Directorate of Infrastructure is a strategic initiative of his Excellency and look at what has happened within a short time. It is a strategic initiative to fast track some keys but basic infrastructures. As Directorate of Infrastructure, we have a mandate for specific, measurable, achievable, and realistic and time bound projects because he wants to make sure that these things are completed before 2015. And he has achieved that and to me I give him all the kudos because it is a beautiful initiative that I think other people should even copy. The Ministry of Education is not into massive reconstruction and all that, though they intervene here and there, but when it comes to total rehabilitation, the Governor has decided to put it under the Directorate of Infrastructure just to make sure that things are quickly done. The same relationship we have with basic education is the same synergy we have with transport. We all work for one man, one vision, and one goal and there is no competition because if we all work as a team we will win together.

But there is this assumption that because of your closeness with the Governor, you always get what you want and that is why the Directorate is doing well?

I do not know about that. I laugh because that is not true. If you work in an organization where the leader has a vision and because he cannot be in every place at the same time, he will put specific people in specific places. And once you key into that vision you will run with it, and we have keyed into that vision. I reminisce over the re-run and re-election in tears and I give glory to God. If you saw what we experienced during the re-election. The Governor is the only person who did two elections in four months and he was still tough. And when he came back into office in 2011 he was set to make his mark and he put distractions aside. And a lot of his time was actually wasted and I think by now he would have gone far. But thank God we are still where we are today. He has done very well. If he assigns anything for you, all you have to do is run with it and it is not a question of whether you are close to him or not. I do not believe it because if you work hard His Excellency will give you work to do. I have been working with him since he was the SSG. There is no competition between me and anybody.

When will the 23km Trans Warri/Ode Itsekiri access roads and bridges be completed?

Let me tell you the truth, I cannot sit here and tell you when the road will be completed. But I can say what needs to be done has been done, which is starting that project, and it has gone very far. And the timeline for that project I do not think it would be 2014. So it will be fool hardy for me to say this is when it is going to be completed. Yes, I can tell you that work has commenced, good work is going on there, His Excellency is very committed to that project and I think that a good part of that project is going to be completed before 2015. But I must tell you one thing that this 23Kms long Trans Warri-Ode-Itsekiri with 23 Bridges is already giving Deltans a sense of unity, pride and interdependence. In its early stages of construction, swamps were drained and large areas were sand filled. Handled by SETRACO, work is still very much in progress, but on completion, this major landmark would have opened up over 10 Delta State Communities, starting from Ubeji, to Ijiala, Ugbodede, Orugbo all the way down to Ode-Itsekiri.

On the Polytechnics

All four polytechnics have started, all contractors have been mobilized. The one in Sapele has done pretty well; it is well over the sub-structure level and has started going up. The one in Agbigborodo, the one in Bomadi and even the one in Aboh have also commenced. His drive is to drive towards completion.

We want you to talk more on the Enerhen Junction Improvement Work.

The junction renewal improvement work is part of His Excellency’s urban renewal project. It includes concrete drainage, lay downs, walk ways. It is like a road construction in way. It goes down to Enerhen Motel, down to Igbudu Primary School and also down to Airport Junction to make sure that everything synchronizes properly so that there will be easy flow of traffic apart from beautification of the roads. There will be markings for street light and even the floors will be marked just like the way you see traffic in developed countries. One of the strategies His Excellency is using is that the contractors doing the work are very competent. Some roundabouts will go because some are really very big but some will stay and we are going to have traffic lights in them too.

Some feel that there is no sense in Delta State Government constructing a federal roads, and we saw contracts are revoked from time to time, have you been able to recover the monies?

About the one hundred and forty nine kilometer road, I think this is one of the best decisions that this government has taken. That 149km road traverses from Ughelli down to Asaba. It opens up over 70 communities both on the road and on the inter-lands. And once roads like that are constructed, aside the economic viability of that road which is tied to the Warri Ports-we have four ports in Delta State. His Excellency took his time and sat down with some of the people who will use the ports more than every other person, and those are the Onitsha traders, and try to see how they can bring goods straight to the Warri Port instead of the Lagos Port. And one of the things he mentioned was that if we get our cargo to Warri Ports how do we now truck them to Onitsha without doing that road. He decided to undertake the construction of that road even though it is a federal government road. I know that things are in place to revenue the construction of that road for possible refunds. We had one or two meetings to review the road for possible refunds. But we must also understand that the road is being constructed for our own use. It will help the villages and towns that have been opened, it will transport goods and services and persons, and we use that road every day. Either you are going through Agbor or through the Isoko or through Benin. It is a viable road and it is an important road just like every other road that His Excellency is constructing. Section A of that road was revoked because the contractor was not performing up to expectation and it has been re-awarded. What happens in such cases is that we move all those documents to the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Justice is taking you straight to court to collect the money from the contractor.

Talking about rehabilitation of schools, there is one school in Warri that is an eyesore, it is Dom-Domigo, and the school seems to be a breeding ground for criminals and it is strategically located around Shell facilities.

His Excellency has actually asked us to go and scope Dom-Domigo. It was scoped last year, December 2012.

Most contractors in Delta State do not take their work seriously, how were you able to have achieved so much?

It is monitoring. You can check with other state, DeltaState roads and projects are some of the cheapest we have in the country. Go to other states and cross check it. That 149 kilometres road, 300 kilometres road, the cost of that road is unbelievable compared to what 20,40,60 kilometres roads will be in other states.

Between local and foreign contractors which do you think is better?

If I want to answer that question objectively I will say they are both good. It depends on the level of seriousness you give your job. I think the local content policy, even at the federal level is also working here at the state level. Local contractors should build capacity. If you want to be your own champion that is when they have problems, but if you build capacity you can take on big projects. You make sure that when you are doing them you follow the rules and regulations for construction and supervise properly. Our local contractors can build even better than foreign contractors if they put their minds to it.

Give more information concerning the Ministry of Justice dragging contractors to Court?

When a contract is revoked the Directorate will not go to court, the Ministry of Justice will go to court on behalf of Delta State so we move all documents to the Ministry of Justice. Any contractor that is affected is taking to court. If your contract is revoked, at the end of the day the engineers will go and work out what you have done and see if it is commensurate to what you have been paid as mobilization. If it is not up to it, then they will pay you the balance but if not, you have to make refunds to the state government.