Yuletide: FERMA Commences Massive Maintenance of Federal Roads in Bauchi State

From Paul Orude Bauchi

The Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA), has commenced maintenance of federal roads in Bauchi State.

This was disclosed by the Federal Roads Maintenance Engineer for Bauchi State, Engineer Daniel Joroh Nanpan, in an interview with journalists in his office, on Wednesday.

Nanpan disclosed that FERMA has kicked-started a special programme called Operation Connect Your Destination in a bid to ensure that users ply the roads safely to their destinations during this year’s Yuletide.

“We are now in December and FERMA has commenced massive maintenance of pot holes along some major roads in Bauchi State,” he revealed.

“The programme kick started last week and our men are on the roads working day and night to see that people travel to their destinations safely during this festive period.

“The major roads we are working on include the Bauchi –Tafawa Balewa, Bauchi – Plateau border, Bauchi –Kari road, Yobe State border.

“These are the major ones we have for Operation Connect Your Destination”

The FERMA Maintenance Engineer also disclosed that work had also commenced on four roads in the state for contracts captured the 2024 Appropriation Budget.

“These are along Bauchi – Jos road where the consultant had reported and will soon commenced work, Bauchi –Gombe State border, where the contractor will soon report any moment from now, Azare – Misau where the contractor has commenced work and will complete it in the next one week.

“The fourth one is along Kari – Yana, Jigawa State border. We are still expecting that contractor he is yet to call us,” he disclosed.

“With all these contracts and the direct labour work if they are executed, the federal roads in Bauchi State will be motorable and people will use them to travel to their destinations during the festive period safely”

Nanpan assured that there were other major interventions being expected because of the recent flooding that caused havoc.

“We had about 10 cut off roads in Bauchi State and our headquarters are arranging on how to intervene because this is the right time to work on the cut off roads before the raining seasons,” he stated.

“Our major challenge is insecurity,” he stated.

“There are times we will work throughout the nights when we collected asphalt from the plant which has to exhaust because if it stays overnight it will go bad.

“Sometimes we work through the night.

“We thank God for the security agencies who use to give us cover so can work easily”

Nanpan believed more maintenance of roads in the state could be done if approvals were not delayed.

He thanked Governor Bala Mohammed for providing the needed support for FERMA to thrive in the state.

“We want to thank the governor for always partnering with us,” he said.

“Most of the time when we had challenges he used to intervene and we are always grateful for his prompts actions to help us in doing some of the things in case our approval have not come.

“Also we want to thank him again for allocating a land for us to build our permanent sight.

“The Governor is a friend to FERMA and we are happy with him for giving us an enabling environment to serve the people of Bauchi state through”