Rivers State based Socio-political pressure group, Network for the Defense of Democracy and Good Governance – NDDGG, has raised concern over the lack of due process in some of road contracts awarded by the State government.
Leader of the group, Ambassador Sobomabo Jackrich in a statement on Friday expressed worry over what he termed the “Rivers State Government’s failure to follow due process in the award of contracts in the state.”
Sobomabo Jackrich made the observation in Luuwa Community of Khana Local Government Area where he was coronated a traditional chieftaincy title called Mene Yereba 1 of Ogoni Land, meaning Chief Helper by chiefs and stakeholders of Ogoniland.
Jackrich while citing the award of the 9th Flyover Bridge at Rumuepirikom and other capital projects by the state government as case studies, queried which medium published bidding for the contracts, and which firm conducted the bill of quantity survey for which the state government arrived at the various contract sums.
“The governor said he wants to build a ninth bridge”
“You will hear that the governor will just say he slept over and then he thinks it is expedient that he has to do this project”
“Nobody comes together to give him a bill of quantity, and there’s no publication anywhere to show that this project would be done”
“In every developed state and country, before a project is being awarded, there will be a publication, advert for people to bid. Please my dear Rivers people, can anybody show me where such a bidding is taking place?”
“The governor decides what he decides, he will come out and say this project is 200 million, Bori/Sakpenwa road is 50 Billion, and so he has paid this and that”, he said.
Sobomabo Jackrich who is also the leader of Kengema Unity Forum further noted the second phase of the Bori/Sakpenwa was awarded because his groups raised the alarm that the state government commissioned the project when it was only 40 percent completed, adding the high level of unemployment recorded in the state was because government contractors failed to honour their cooperate social responsibilities to their cachement areas.
On his part, leader of Ogoni Liberation Initiative, Reverend Fabike Douglas assured that Ogonis will continue to synergize with the Kalabaris and other ethnic nationalities in the state so as to forge a common front for the enthronement of a credible leadership in the state ahead of the next political dispensation.
Douglas equally disclosed that his group has dragged Julius Berger to court over its failure to compensate people of Ogoni communities whose means of livelihood have been affected as a result of projects carried out by the construction giant for the state government.
