FERMA intervenes on North-East roads

As part of federal government’s efforts to restore normalcy in the North-eastern part of the country, the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) has commenced a special intervention plan to repair roads in the region. Speaking during the commencement ceremony in Bauchi, Thursday, Dauda Kigbu, the permanent secretary, federal ministry of works, said that the agency […]

As part of federal government’s efforts to restore normalcy in the North-eastern part of the country, the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) has commenced a special intervention plan to repair roads in the region.
Speaking during the commencement ceremony in Bauchi, Thursday, Dauda Kigbu, the permanent secretary, federal ministry of works, said that the agency has set up a special task force to repair the highways of the North-east.
He said that the initiative was a modest contribution of the agency to the effort of the present administration to restore sanity in the region and help people of the region to live normal lives.
He said: “The North-east in particular is facing serious security challenges and these challenges have impacted a lot on the infrastructure. Therefore we need to complement the government’s work by bringing in our team to fix the road infrastructure to improve the free movement of people, goods and services.”
He commended the members of the task force for the work they have been doing within the short period they were given the task.
While speaking, the managing director of the agency, Engr. Gabriel Amuchi, said that the special task was inaugurated to address the challenges of road infrastructure facing the region.
He said that the task force, made up of FERMA engineers, has taken the task given to it seriously, adding: “So we want to continue with routine maintenance, keep our presence in all of the North-east area with the work of this task force so that movement of goods and services will be sustained as the government is tackling the major challenge. We need to be strategic because of the rainy season.”
Amuchi added that the move was intended to ensure that economic activities were not grounded as a result of collapsed roads network in the North-east.
According to him, the activities of the task force will cover Bauchi, Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Taraba and Jigawa which borders Bauchi and Yobe states.
“In particular, in the North-east zone, we have inaugurated a task force to concentrate in covering the roads in the North-eastern areas that are safe to ensure that we did not get to a level of total breakdown of communication, movement of good and services, and that task force has been working since the past three weeks and they have recovered a lot of washed out locations, eroded areas and have patched numerous potholes, maintaining the areas that are accessible to promote economic activities.”