‘Anambra Needs More Roads’ 

Raymond Ozoji, Awka

Anambra State House of Assembly Committee on Works has said that the state is in dire need of more roads to provide unhindered access into the hinterlands and remote communities to aid farmers in conveying farm produce to urban centres.

Chairman of the committee Hon. Ikechukwu Umeh said this while fielding questions from newsmen at the state assembly complex on Monday shortly after budget bilateral talks with the ministry of works.

He said the whole communities and villages in Anambra state needed roads as some of the roads constructed were destroyed by flood adding that the state also required more funds to maintain roads as well as build more.

The works committee chairman also noted that his committee embarked on oversight functions to ascertain that quality roads were constructed in Anambra state stressing that the ministry of works has more task before it in the forthcoming year to mobilize contractors back to site and ensure that quality road projects were executed to cushion devastating effects of roads washed away by erosion and flooding.

In another development, Anambra state commissioner for works Engr. Marcel Ifejiofor told journalists that last year the ministry of works was given N25 billion for road construction and in 2019 the ministry had 19 billion naira.

He further disclosed that because of the natural disasters that occurred in 2018, the ministry required more funds to tackle roads devastated by flood as well as construct new ones.

Ifejiofor observed that Anambra was an erosion-prone state and it has over 1000 active erosion sites which was the remote reason the state government was asking federal government to declare Anambra state an erosion-disaster area as cost of erosion control was enormous.

The commissioner also informed journalists that the ministry of works appealed to the Anambra State House of Assembly to increase the budget of the ministry to enable it to attend to road infrastructure across the state.