Work has reached advance stage in the construction of 70 housing units awarded by Chevron Nigeria Limited in alliance with the Itsekiri Regional Development Committee, IRDC, to tackle the housing shortage in the Coastal Communities in Delta State. Contractors handling the projects were working round the clock to beat the deadline of delivering the houses within four months.

Investigations by The Moment indicated that the contracts that were mainly from Delta state were working to the meet the standard put in place by the monitoring committee as part of the agenda to deliver the project within budget and on time.

Chairman of Itsekiri Regional Development Committee, Mr. Mofe Pirah, who addressed the contractors during a ceremony to mark the formal signing of the contract at the IRDC Secretariat in Warri, recently explained that the choice of providing more housing units for the 23 oil/gas producing impacted communities was reached after due consultation with all the stakeholders adding that the absence of good accommodation are one of the problems confronting the riverine communities . He noted that the challenges faced by the host communities were one of the reasons for the award of the contract.

He revealed the that the Council had put the necessary machinery in place to ensure that the contractors adhere strictly to standard, he tasked the contractors to deliver the projects in four months, warning that the Council would not make any variation to the jobs and that enough money had been put in place to ensure successful completion of the projects.

According to him, out of 100 contractors that went through the bidding process, 58 came out successful after rigorous scrutiny. The Chairman of Project Review Committee, Mr. Ayodele Daniel, in his contributions said that one of the IRDC policies is to encourage indigenous contractors and tasked them to ensure a high standard in the execution of the projects for the overall development of the oil bearing communities.