I read the speech of Governor Lalong ‘s during the visit of president Muhamadu Buhari.

The portion that caught my attention was the status of the secretariat junction overhead bridge in which, in an attempt to impress his boss claimed that he inherited the work at 30% when he took over and he completed it.

Surprise! Surprise!!.30% on that bridge to a lay man like me means that the bridge was at foundation stage when he took over in May 2015.

Haba, Mr Governor, you came, you saw and I expect that you were properly briefed on the status of this project by the ministry of works and the contractor and would want to believe that none of them gave you the 30%. Let me assume that you were either misquoted or you meant that you did 30% of the work before it was commissioned by the president.

Permit me to justify my position.
I. The handover notes from Governor Jang clearly stated the status of each project, Including the secretariat junction overhead bridge certainly did not give you the status of completion at 30%.

II. Kindly refer to the submission by the state ministry of works to the chairman, Judicial commission of inquiry into the activities of governance between May 29th 2007 – May 29th 2015, dated 31st August 2016, where the ministry put the status of the project as at handover at 68.14%.

III. Various progress reports from the ministry of works and the contractor, PW Nig Ltd within the period under reference can also be referred to

In view of the foregoing, I wonder whether the Governor was adequately briefed by the technocrats or, the speech writers decided to input arbitrary figures to impress their boss and the esteem visitor.

If the ministry of works made inputs into your speech and they provided the 30% figure, then their professional competence should be called to question.

If on the other hand, the inputs of the professionals from the ministry of works was not sought, then the competence of your speech writers and political advisers are under question.

To avoid this kind of embarrassment to the Governor and the people of plateau state in the future, I wish to sincerely advice that due diligence be carried out on any matter before presenting such to the public.

Meanwhile, I strongly suggest this misinformation be corrected and made public to enhance the transparency of government, which is the custodian of public trust.

This is my simple piece of advice.

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STATUS OF THE SECRETARIAT JUNCTION FLYOVER WITH SLIP ROADS AND UNDERPASSES – Hon. Davou Mang