The Commissioner for Works in Delta State, Chief James Augoye has given insights into how the State Government ensures projects are built to specifications.
Chief Augoye gave the insights during a media interaction with journalists on Tuesday in his office in Asaba, the State capital.
According to the Commissioner, even though the State Ministry of Works has competent hands to supervise projects, the State Governor Ifeanyi Okowa felt there was a need to have a body outside the ministry to ensure proper supervision and strict compliance with projects specifications given to contractors, hence he constituted the Delta State Project Implementation, Evaluation and Monitoring Team (DSPIEMT).
He explained that the Ministry under his purview has three layers of project supervision which start with the field engineers/superintendent engineers, the zonal chief engineers at the level of projects sites who carry out day to day supervision of projects being executed by the State Government under the ministry of works.
The second layer according to the Commissioner, was the directors, deputy directors and assistant directors who go to the field from time to time to verify reports submitted by field engineers while the last layer is the office of the Commissioner, who visits projects sites to see whether projects are executed according to specification.
These layers of supervision Augoye said serve to ensure that projects carried out in the State meet specified standards.
“The clarification was necessary because if the DSPIEMT report otherwise, that is, if they find out that some of the projects are not being executed according to specifications and standard, and the report is made to the Governor, project certification would not be carried out, and this means that if the contractor do not comply with the directives, job done would not be certify for payment.
“It is important that contractors are aware of this, they should not say whether they work or not they will get certification. The Ministry of Works will not condone any shoddy work,” he said.
He warned that any contractor who fail to adhere to the directive would not get his job certified and any field engineer who refused to comply or cooperate with the monitoring team would be sanctioned, saying that the ministry has a way of dealing with erring staff.
He assured the Project Implementation, Evaluation and Monitoring Team, that the ministry would work closely, cooperate with them to ensure that projects executed by contractors are done according to specifications.
He appealed to contractors working under the ministry to cooperate with the Delta State Project Implementation, Evaluation and Monitoring Team for them to do their work effectively.
He urged the contractors to cooperate with DSPIEMT whenever they are on site to oblige them with all necessary documents which they need to ensure they carry out their work effectively, even as he told field engineers to also provide the team with documents such as drawings, designs and the likes whenever they need them.
Chief Augoye called on Deltans to draw the attention of the Ministry of Works to any road project that is executed by the ministry since 2015 that is failing, saying that the Defect Liability Period has been extended from one year to two years and if there are failures, the contractor has to go back to maintain such failure.