Dr Kenneth Ugballa is the member representing the South-East Zone on the Board of Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA). In this interview with select journalists in his country home in Ebonyi State, he speaks on activities of the Agency. CLEMENT NNACHI reports
Could you give us an insight on the vision of the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA)?
The new vision of the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA), is to make sure that all the roads built and handed over to us by the Federal Ministry of Works are maintained. That is our core mandate. You are aware that as a nation, we need to work very seriously on our maintenance culture.
This is because the best is not only to build roads, the best is to maintain the roads. When you build roads and they are not maintained, you find out that we are losing everything. Mr. President has given us a marching order, to make sure that all the roads in the nation are attended to. Our idea is that there should be an aggressiveness to that responsibility. There are reports in some sections of the media that South-East roads are neglected by the agency.
How do you react to this?
I do not believe in that kind of insinuation. If you watch from Abakaliki to Enugu now, you will see that there is maintenance going on by FERMA. I don’t think that the present administration is neglecting us. All we need is to exercise patience with our President and, of course, the Minister for Works.
We are going to get the best of this administration. That is why we call on our people to continue to support,” he stated. You can see maintenance going on from Abakaliki to Afikpo. If you go across Abia State to Enugu State and part of Anambra State, the south-east states are receiving attention.
The Enugu-Onitsha Road is under construction, including the 9th Mile-Gboko-Makurdi road and some other roads within the zone benefiting from the coastal road project of President Tinubu administration. In 2025, we want to improve on what we have been doing,a lot of roads have been accommodated.
Resources may not be enough with our demands, we are concerned in making sure that there is transparency, we place value for money. It is not easy battling with the contractors, just like Mr President and our Minister of Works do say place God first and the interest of the nation.
Also place the people you are representing, we are committed to seeing that we achieve that desire and by the first quarter of 2025, we are going to make sure that all ongoing projects are completed before we go into the 2025 budget.
You know, maintenance of roads happens at the last quarter of the year,so we try to avoid the rainy season. We look forward to having a FERMA of our dream.
How has the Agency been collaborating with State Governors/Stakeholders in the different zones of the country?
We are collaborating with State Governors because they are in charge of the States in the country. Governors are critical stakeholders and we need them to enable us achieve our core mandate. We look forward to giving the public the best.
What would you consider as the major challenges hampering the smooth operations of the agency?
If there were no challenges, we would not have been called, because there was a problem and we were called to solve the problem. Working with the contractors is not easy because most times, when funds are given to contractors, they don’t have value for money. Battling with contractors on the field is not an easy task. People easily forget that this are tax payers’ money.
Sometimes, there are some difficult terrains that you start battling with the issue of security. There are places that you cannot easily go without engaging the security very seriously. Besides, variation in the price of goods and services especially we are dealing with materials. Today, you cost a particular road at this price, tomorrow the price has changed. We are not deterred by that that is why we were called.
How do you tackle the problem of variation often brought by contractors in the course of contract execution?
We often tell contractors to work within the specified period given to them whenever there are given contracts. Sometimes, when money is released to contractors to work with, they keep the money under their custody until the price of materials increases. It is not the default of the agency. It is the fault of the contractors.
Right now, we come up with a strong agreement that if we give you a job when a bag of cement is N8,000, and you delay till a bag of cement increases to N9,000, it is no longer the fault if the agency. However, when it is not the fault of the contractor, we will sit down with the procurement, and know the best way to handle it.
Has FERMA cued into the rigid concrete pavement of the Federal Government?
FERMA responsibility is not to construct roads, except roads going to farm lands. Our major job is to maintain roads in addition to vegetation control.
