El-Rufai Completes 190 Meters Romi-Karatudu Bridge

El-Rufai Completes 190 Meters Romi-Karatudu Bridge

After over two years of neglect by the immediate past administration, Kaduna Governor , Malam Nasir El-Rufai has finally mobilised contractor handling the the Romi-Karatudu bridge to complete the project.

According to residents , who spoke to Daily Newstimes during an assessment tour of some road contracts within the metropolis on Saturday, the contractor , TigerCat Construction Company completed the bridge February this year and opened it for use same month.

The project is among one of the 32 roads contracts  awarded in October , 2012 by the Late Kaduna Governor , Sir Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa .

It was gathered that after the death of Late Ibrahim Yakowa, former governor of the state died, December , 2012, most of the roads contracts, including the Romi-Karatudu-Kakau road were abandoned ,due to lack of funds .

In a chat with the site Engineer, Joseph Onche after the tour, he said  completion of the  190 meters bridge project, which is part of  the six kilometres Romi-Karadu-Kakau Yakowa road  project was made possible by  Governor El-Rufai, who “mobilised us back to site.”

He stated, “We retuned to site November , 2015 after Governor Nasir El-Rufai checked the work and saw that there was need to complete the work. I think he understood the importance of the road to people of area .

” Since then his government has been making response to the payments . But because , we exceed the contract duration, the government has completely withdrawn mobilisation. And that for us is another double loss. Now ,we are working and claiming as we work .The difference is that with mobilisation there is power to move at very fast pace.

“We returned to site November last year and by February we complete it for use.”

While pointing out that  failure to release funds on side of the Governor Ramalan Yero administration stalled the completion of the project , he noted, “Even at that ,we were still on site trying to work with hope that the government then will consider us for payment ,which never came”.

However , Engineer Onch who disclosed that   contract was initially awarded October , 2012 for a duration of  12 months completion period , said “The Syrian company started immediately and was working at a high pace, unfortunately,  three months into the project , Governor Ibrahim Yakowa died .

” But his  death didn’t stop us from working. But his death slowed the pace. The residents of the area can tell that we were working at high pace to ensure that we completed the project on record time.”

 A resident of   Karatudu Sati, narrated the hardship they faced when the bridge and road was abandoned . According to him, the completion of the bridge has made movement and transportation easy.‎

“We used to go through Goni-Gora if we have to go to Romi, which is a stone throw here, because the make shift Iron bridge was damage by last year’s flood.”

“We can’t thank  El-Rufai enough for completing the bridge, but we are begging him to help us complete the road before rains become serious ” .‎