Delta State Government has cautioned citizens against impeding projects meant to serve the general public, saying such actions were illegal and constituted an abuse of the law.
The State Commissioner for Works (Highways and Urban Roads), Comrade Reuben Izeze, gave the warning in Effurun on Wednesday during an inspection of the DSC Roundabout Link Road to PTI Junction.
According to him, “no citizen is bigger than the state; I learnt that a citizen has said a particular portion of the road that has been approved cannot be constructed because that is his private property.
“I want to sound it to our people as a note of warning, that, to impede government project in the name of private property is an abuse of the law.
“If your property is on the right of way and we know it is not a road, this administration has made it a point of duty to pay compensation for the use of such properties in the overriding public interest.
“This project has an overriding public interest; if your property is in the right of way and your property has approval, the best we can do, as we have always done, is to give you compensation.
“But to say you stop government officials from doing their job because you feel you are bigger than the government or you are bigger than the law is absolutely unacceptable.”
Speaking further, he said; “so, we are constructing a drainage that would discharge all the water on this road. If you look at this place, it was originally a swamp.
“Meanwhile, this place had all along been intended to be a road that should take traffic from the East-West Road to reduce the volume of traffic on DSC Roundabout and PTI Junction straight to the Eku highway.
“We have come to see what the contractors are doing and I must express my displeasure at the poor quality of engineering work that I have observed here in this drainage.
“In fact, as things stand, considering the volume of water that will be coming from the Julius Berger projects, the existing volume of water from the swamp.
“What is being done here, therefore, necessitates that this drain be done according to the engineering specifications because the volume of water we will be dealing with is enormous.
“However, on getting down here and measuring the distance between the reinforcements, we discovered that the contractor apparently did not pay attention to details.
“So, I have instructed them to remove everything, start afresh and we will come back. They should not put the reinforcement until I have come to inspect what they have done to be sure that they have complied with the spacing as provided for in the Bills of Engineering Measurement and Evaluation.”