Delta State Commissioner for Works (Rural and Riverine Roads) Mr Charles Aniagwu, says the opposition in the state were confused and perplexed by the amazing performances of the Sheriff Oborevwori administration.
Aniagwu who disclosed this on a live television programme monitored in Asaba, said the opposition in the state used to be very vociferous but were now confounded by the outstanding accomplishments in infrastructural and human capital development of the Oborevwori administration.
Speaking on “Developments within the sub-nationals year 2024 in retrospect”, Aniagwu remarked that 2024 was a great year for Deltans with the entire state witnessing construction works across all local government areas.
He stated that Governor Oborevwori inherited 377 ongoing road projects spanning 1,052.4km and had introduced over 136 new road projects spanning 332km.
According to him, the Oborevwori administration is running strong and you can see why the opposition in Delta have remained silent because they used to be very virile in the past.
“Now they are quite confused that Oborevwori is running on the promises he made and we are comfortable where we are at the moment with the sterling performances of this administration”.
“Governor Oborevwori is not only strong in the area of roads construction, we are also renovating a good number of our health centres and general hospitals.
We are also having a lot of advancement in the area of rebuilding of our schools.
“I am also happy to announce to you that even our 2025 budget has already been passed and that tells you how serious Governor Oborevwori takes the issue of early start.
“So as far as we are concerned, on the 1st of January, our 2025 budget would have kicked in, because the Governor believed that we needed to take proactive actions and in this 2025 budget, he is budgeting well in excess of N250 billion to address issues of roads infrastructure.
“But in terms of total capital budget, we are spending close to 60% of our budgetary provision, of N976 billion on the capital part of the budget.”
He urged Deltans to assess Governor Oborevwori’s performances in line with the promises he made during the electioneering campaign adding that the Governor had kept faith with those promises.
“Oborevwori is not only sustaining the temple of development, he is running very, very fast. Of course, bearing in mind that his agenda is a more agenda and for you to understand what Oborevwori is doing in this aspect, you need to look at what we call the marking scheme.
“The marking scheme is called, the ‘MORE Agenda’ and that more is about meaningful development, opportunities for all the towns, realistic reforms in a number of areas and then of course, enhanced peace and security.”
“On meaningful development, i can tell you authoritatively that over 377 roads spanning as much as 1,052.4 kilometers were inherited from the last administration.
“Beyond inheriting and working on those he inherited, Oborevwori has also initiated over 136 new road projects spanning over 332 kilometers. He is not only running fast on these projects, he is also ensuring that the ones he inherited are also being worked upon.
“You recall the different changes that were triggered by the changes in costs on account of certain policies of the federal government.
“We are reviewing a number of these projects, ensuring that some of the contractors are back on site so that at the end of the day, we do not have anybody having to shortchange the state on account of a change in a cost.
“We are moving smoothly and we’re comfortable the way we are running with some of these projects today and as I speak to you, there are a number of projects we have completed, we did not even have the time to commission them in our first year in office in June, a number of milestones projects were completed.”
The Works Commissioner further said Governor Oborevwori introduced a novel approach to budgeting by providing for internal roads in the 25 local government areas.
“In the course of the 2024 budget, we introduced a novel approach to budgeting for our local government areas. We provided for the 25 local government areas so that every local government have a head and the course of this year we provided just N1 billion as intervention per local government.
“That is not the entire budget, that is for every local government, internal roads within a particular local government.
“But having seen the miracles and milestones we have recorded using that approach this year, we tried to increase it. We have for 2025 taken it above N2 billion per local government to provide for ongoing and completed projects.” Aniagwu added.
PRESS UNIT,
GOVT.HOUSE, ASABA
