GOVERNOR Uduaghan of Delta State, weekend said that the State Government would soon implement the master drainage project in five (5) major towns and cities in the state. He equally assured Deltans that all roads being constructed but currently put on hold will be completed as soon as the rains were over.

Speaking to newsmen shortly after inspection of roads in the city, the Governor held that his administration was poised to tackle flooding in the State and called on Deltans to always maintain drainages in their surroundings.

The Governor said, “We decided to construct a roundabout at the Airport junction to ease traffic because for those of us who have been in Warri for a long time, you will notice that sometimes, there is traffic jam there, vehicles coming from the Airport road and vehicles along the Effurun/Sapele road, sometimes there can be a very terrible traffic jam there and so with the round about, it will ease the traffic. Then, we also want to use the round about for beautification purpose.”

“We have a master drainage project that we are starting in Warri and Effurun as soon as the rainy season is over just as we have the one that is starting in Asaba and Ughelli and of course the other place is Uzere. We need to do a master drainage for these areas because they get flooded with the rains and you know the problem of flooding has increased all over the world because of the level of the water; people must understand that flooding is not peculiar to Delta State alone, all over the world now, there is serious problem of flooding because of climate change. But for us, we need to do something and so we are commencing this master drainage project in Warri and Effurun,” he said.

According to him; “For us as a government, we are ready to maintain the drains, but people have to be responsible by avoiding throwing things into the drainage system. We need to develop this habit that the responsibility for caring for the drainage rest on all of us because everybody suffers from the flooding problem and so we need to behave responsibly as far as the drainage systems are concerned.”

“We are going to create another turn around place on the Airport road just before the Airport junction so that people do not need to get to the junction before they start turning round,” the Governor stated.

According to him; “My visit to the Plantation City Garden; we had some problems with the contractors and the contract was abandoned. Exco set up a committee to look into the contract, there were few problems with the terms of the contract and in fact, we were set to terminate it, but apparently few things have been done and if you noticed some construction works have started, 28 units of houses (bungalows) are going to be built in the next few months and the remaining land will be allocated to people who will build according to the prototype. Infrastructures in the Plantation are almost ready; there is road, there is drainage and there is a provision for electricity already. But why I am interested in the factory is that it makes interlocking stones.

We are in the process of constructing new towns starting from Okerenkoko and Ugborodo; the roads in the new town are going to use interlocking stones because of the terrain and so if we have that type of factory, we can produce the interlocking stones that we will use for the roads in those communities and that was why I went to the factory to look at the place; we are going to use it because it is cheaper for us at the end of the day.”

“We are ready to use the Green Park at the Effurun roundabout for the Christmas period,” he said.

“Talking about roads generally in Warri and Effurun, you would have noticed that at a time, there seems to have been some problems with the roads, especially the roundabout and all that. I am not even impressed with the tarring of many of our roads in Warri, enough layers were not put on these roads and that is why they fail easily; it is very clear to everybody now that we need to resurface most of the roads in this environment and that is what we are going to do in the next dry season,” Governor Uduaghan posited.

“To construct road during the rainy season is not easy but as soon as the rains are over, we will commence work in all the on-going road projects in the state.”