The Abia State Road Maintenance Agency (ABROMA) has said it will sustain it’s Community Development Project aimed at establishing efficient road system in rural communities of the 17 Local Government Areas of the state.
The General Manager, ABROMA, Chief Okochi Okali, who disclosed this on Wednesday during an interview with Newsmen in Umuahia, further stated that the program will ensure that rural roads are safe and in usable condition to boost productivity at the grassroot.
He said that the program was run through collaborative efforts between the agency and rural communities to achieve rural development.
“The problem of infrastructure cannot be solved by the state and federal governments, alone.
“Our Agency embarked on public enlightenment campaigns to encourage rural communities to notify us through invitation letters, about roads that require our services.
“Since the inception of this programme there has been significant improvement in the condition of roads in rural areas and the response of communities to the programme has been encouraging.
“We have encountered people that are passionate about building their communities and this programme was just the platform they needed to actualise their desires,” Okochi said.
While noting that the Agency had executed road maintenance operations in some communities in Obingwa, Umuahia South ,Bende ,Ohafia, Umunneochi, and Isiala Ngwa North local government areas, Okali said that the agency is committed to its mandate of prolonging the life span of roads in the state through routine and proactive maintenance operations.
The ABROMA boss said that the success of the Community Development Project relied greatly on the functionality of the agency’s equipment and availability of adequate human resources and urged the state government to reassign some engineers in the Ministry of Works to the agency as well as train them on how to operate the equipments used for the agency’s operations.
“A lot of engineers in the Ministry of Works are doing little or nothing, but with little training they can be useful in the field and running of a government-owned workshop,” he added.
According to him, the agency was faced with the challenge of spending a fortune on the routine repairs of the equipment adding that the amount of money spent on the maintenance of equipments used for the agency’s operations was high.
He therefore appealed to the state government to establish a mechanical workshop that would provide a cost efficient solution to the need of routine repairs of the agency’s work equipments.
Okali who called for Public Private Partnership(PPP) said that ABROMA was open to partnership with the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency(FERMA), adding that it would enable ABROMA interface with professionals and have access to more equipments.
He commended Governor Okezie Ikpeazu for the level of infrastructural development across the state and urged him not to relent.
