Flood disaster: Jigawa govt allocates $5mln for road repairs

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The Jigawa State government has allocated over N8.3 billion for the repairs and reconstruction of the last hundred kilometres of roads, bridges, and culverts damaged by the flood disaster across the state.

Managing Director (MD) of the Jigawa State Road Maintenance Agency (JIRMA), Eng. Abbas Muhammad Lalai, revealed in an exclusive interview with Tribune Online in Dutse that “the state government has opened a tender for the repairs and reconstruction of some of the damaged bridges, culverts, and roads washed away by the flood disaster in the state.”

The Managing Director explained that “this is in line with the Malam Umar Namadi-led administration’s commitment to restore the road in to use for social and economic activities in the state”.

According to him “just last one or two weeks a tender for the projects was opened at the Ministry of Works and Transport new roads to be constructed. The tenders opened this agency has five to six projects for some repairs and reconstructions of bridges, culverts and roads”.

“Those projects are the once affected by the flood disaster of 2022 and some few of this year (2024). Presently the contracts had been approved and awarded to the winning contractors who participated on the tenders advertised by the government”.

Eng. Abbas Muhammad Lalai, “As I’m talking to you, the contractors are about to mobilise to the site as the government working for their mobilization fee to speed the work for the have easy access to transports them selves and farm products within and outside the state”.

The MD maintained that “affected roads include Eastern Byepass starting from Area, Baturiya, Chanceno, Kadira to Guri. There is Madobi, Katanga to Dangoli, than Koriya to Gwiwa road, Zakira Kano state border to Ringim, Gujungu to Hadejia where more culverts would be constructed after the repairs to give the water enough access to pass and the Gwaram to Basirika road where two bridges collapsed. All these was in the 2022 flood”.

Commenting on the recent flood, Eng Lalai noted that “in this month of August when heavy downpour experiencing had affected so many roads across the state, “we did not expect flood this time, especially from the frontal rainfalls, this year it happens when the flooding waters flows over some roads and washed away many and breaks bridges and culverts”.

“Our fast experience the flood occurring between September ending to October when the Hadejia-Jamaare River Basin Development Authority use to releases some water from Dams to prevent possible breaks of the Dams”.

He stated further that “following these incidences, we go round on inspection and assessment of the level of the damages and get all the records of what happened and where it happens. We are now analyzing and what each needs and recommendation of what to do”.

“We did some already and submitted to to the directorate of Due Process and Projects Monitoring to also analyse the cost of the work and made their recommendation to the state government. While we now on some that recently happened”.

“The roads affected by the August flood include Gwaram road where a Bagadaza bridge affected, Cai-chai to Ringim also a bridge affected and Andaza, Tsirma to Aujara which it’s totally cuts cause an accident, those we go and made an emergency work to give alternative”.

“Birninkudu to Zazuka, and another road in Gwaram local government area have been damaged. The Dam at Warning in Bauchi state collapsed and the water washed away the road, as well as destroyed some culverts. We have visited some of these areas and will be attending to the rest.

Engineer Abbas Muhammad Lalai emphasized Governor Malam Umar Namadi’s commitment to the welfare of the people, stating, “Initially, our 2024 budget was N2.7 billion, but due to the governor’s commitment, it has been increased to over N5.7 billion in a recently approved supplementary budget to take care of the necessary works.”