The reason for the abandonment of roads being constructed by the Governor Rochas Okorocha-led administration in Imo State has been revealed.
According to investigations carried out by 247ureports.com, the road projects were abandoned because of the various kick-backs collected by the governor from the contractors.
In order to impress the people of the state who voted him into power in 2011, Governor Okorocha directed that every road in every community be opened and constructed.
This he did without any contractual agreement with the contractors.
But, more than two years after the contracts were awarded, majority of them were outrightly abandoned, while those which had been completed were not paid for.
It was gathered that the actual contract sum, agreed by the governor, for each kilometer of roads in the state was N130million, but kick-backs collected by Governor Okorocha and various state government officials took the larger chunk of the money, reducing it to N60 million.
According to investigations, local government transition committee chairmen and members representing various State constituencies in the Imo State House of Assembly collected between N10 million and N20 million as kick-backs, while the governor got N30million from each kilometer.
Speaking to 247ureports.com on the condition of anonymity, one of the contractor said the road contracts were awarded to them by the state ministry of Works at the sum of N120million per kilometer without documentation and designs.
The contractor said however that the governor reduced it to N90 million which he further reduced to N70million before settling finally for N60million, resulting to poor jobs.
He said that in spite of the reductions, different government officials still wanted them to pay them between N18million and N20million, which they normally deducted at source before payment.
He said that they managed to carry out the projects at N60million, but maintained that the arrangement made some of the contractors to abandon the job.
The contractor lamented that some of them borrowed money to prime the roads, but were yet to be paid till date despite the fact that they opened more than 2000kilometers of roads before government decided to construct 15kilometer in each LGA of the state.
One of the contractors who abandoned their projects said he did so because the former Transition Committee chairman for Isiala Mbano LGA, Mr. Dominic Obi collected the sum of N18million kick-back from him, causing him not to return to site for his job.
