Delta State Commissioner for Works (Rural Roads) and Public Information, Mr Charles Aniagwu, Thursday, has said Governor Sheriff Oborevwori is connecting communities and transforming lives through the provision of road infrastructure across rural communities in the state.
Speaking on a national television monitored in Asaba, Aniagwu said Governor Oborevwori had completed over 100km of road with over 150km ongoing.
He said Oborevwori provided N1 billion each for road construction in the 25 local government areas in the 2024 fiscal year and upscaled it to N2.1 billion each in the 2025 budget.
“When the Governor came in on May 29, 2023, he made a number of promises, but chiefly he was clear on the need to continue on existing projects, in which case he was going to ensure that no project is abandoned and at the same time initiate new ones.
“In terms of connecting our communities, he has been able to ensure that every local government area has roads that are ongoing or completed, which is why he created the Ministry of Works, (Rural Roads), and then started with the responsibility of opening up our rural communities.
“In the 2024 fiscal year, he made sure that we, first of all, amassed one billion for each of the local government areas to enable us to tackle some community roads.
“The moment we saw the benefit of that particular budgetary provision, at the time we now started preparing for the 2025 budget, he directed that we must increase it to above N2 billion per local government area.
“As I speak to you, in terms of tackling rural roads, we provided over N2.1 billion to be able to tackle rural roads in every local government area and that is not inclusive of what we have also provided for ongoing and new projects.
“The government in seeing the need to indeed link up to communities in our state, directed that we must also extend this construction of roads to riverine areas.
“Delta being a coastal state, has a whole lot of riverine communities where we need to also construct roads in addition to bridges to link up to these rural and riverine communities.
“All those are ongoing and we have commissioned a number of them. As I speak to you, not less than 100 kilometers of such roads have been completed, even as over 150 again are also ongoing.”
The Commissioner further remarked that Governor Oborevwori was interested in developing rural communities alongside the urban centres to curb rural-urban migration.
“The reason is because we believe that once the rural communities are developed, we would have been able to chiefly empower the people because the number of the people who even migrate to the urban centers also come from these rural communities.
“Making rural communities much more livable to the people will ultimately free the urban areas, because the issue of rural-urban drift that makes the urban areas to become overpopulated, puts a whole lot of pressure on the infrastructure in the urban centers.
“So for us to be able to keep pace with this development in urban centers, we needed to do something in the rural areas in addition to the fact that it also makes it possible for us to ensure security of life and property in those communities.”
He said no state in the country had budgeted over N125 billion for the development of road infrastructure in rural communities, assuring that requests for road construction in communities would be prioritised on need assessment basis subject to availability of funds.
New Hands on Deck as Delta Targets Durable Roads under Oborevwori