Investments worth $50 billion in Rivers State are now at stake due to deplorable state of roads in Eleme-Onne axis, a section of the East-West Road.
Expressing dissatisfaction over the bad road, the Managing Director of Oil and Gas Free Zones (OGFZA), Mr. Umana Okon Umana, said “apart from its adverse impact on existing businesses in the axis, the logistic crisis caused by the failed section of the road constitutes a serious deterrence to foreign direct investment which the Federal Government has been campaigning for.”
“No foreign investor wants to stake his money where he cannot have access to,” Umana said.
Umana, who commended the Ministry of Niger Delta on infrastructure developments across the region, said that he has drawn the attention of the Minister and the Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to the condition of the road.
The Head of Operations and Technical Services at the OGFZA, Mr Adekunle Ajayi, who gave the estimated economic implication of the bad road, said “businesses cut off by the collapse of the East-West Road in Eleme are collectively worth more than $50 billion.
“Those businesses include Intels, which is the Onne Free Zone developer, the West African Container Terminal (WACT), Brawal Shipping Company, all the IOCs represented in the free zone,” he said.
Condition of the road worsened last week following the collapse of a bridge that allows access to a critical business corridor which host petroleum refineries in Eleme, the Onne Port complex, Oil and Gas Free Zones (OGFZA), the Indorama/Eleme Petro-chemical Plant, Notore Petro-Chemical Industries and other businesses.
Ajayi listed some of the government agencies that are contending with the situation to include OGFZA, the NPA, Nigeria Customs Service, the Nigerian Naval College, and the Nigeria Immigration Service.
He added that “besides the investments already mentioned, there are lots of sundry businesses and government establishments along the corridor up to Ogoni that are also no longer accessible from Port Harcourt because of the failure of the road.”
The terrible condition of the road attracted the attention of the Rivers State Governor, Mr Nyesom Wike in 2016, who met with investors and government establishments within the axis.
On the prompting of the state governor, the investors and the Rivers State Government contributed N3 billion to assist in the repair of the failed section of the road, which measures about seven kilometres.
A member of the committee that was set up to implement the intervention on the road from the N3billion collections said the money was disbursed to RCC to carry out repairs of the road.
However, less than two years after, the road has become impassable again.
The East-West Road is a Federal Government trunk “A” road, intended to link the South-South, Southeast and Western parts of the country together.
