Adamawa communities protest stoppage of work on rural road

From Umar Dankano, Yola.

The controversy rocking the Adamawa state House of Assembly and a construction company, Hydro Source Resources Constructing a World Bank assisted rural road project in the state has taken a new dimension as communities of Labondo,Damare,Gereng and Koh in Girei Local Government Areas have protested against the Assembly’s directive for the stoppage of the project in their localities.
It would be recalled that, the Adamawa House of Assembly Committee on Rural Infrastructure and Development had on November 7 during oversight visit ordered the company handling the road project under the World Bank assisted Rural Access Mobility Project (RAMP-2) to suspend work on the project over alleged non compliance with standard.
The communities who trooped to RAMP-2 project office and the Ministry for Rural Infrastructure and Community Development to submit their letter of protest said they have started seeing the benefit of the road to socio-economic activities in the area and the decision to suspend work was disturbing to them.
They called for speedy resolution of the matter between the assembly and the company to ensure the completion of work before the December dateline.
Parts of the protest letter read: “This project no doubt, has already started contributing immensely to the socio-economic development of our communities. Needless to say that the road has made it easier to evacuate our agricultural products, the main source of livelihood, to the desired destinations.
“Our communities wish to plead with you to resist any step taken to frustrate this project through government bureaucracy. If the World Bank/French Development Agency consultants who are world class professionals are satisfied with the work done by the contractor, we do not see any reason why politicians could override them.”
In their respective remarks after collecting the protest letter, Commissioner for Rural Infrastructure and Community Development, Alhaji Hassan Pakka, and the Project Coordinator of RAMP-2, Engr. Abbas Mohammed lauded the communities for their peaceful conduct and promised to forward their letter to the governor for consideration.