Mr. Abbah Moro, a federal lawmaker representing Benue South at the Senate, has abandoned N30 million Community Bridge that is his constituency project, subjecting residents to severe suffering.
Under the deal, Abbah Moro nominated the construction of Odiapa Community Bridge in Obi Local Government Area of Benue as his constituency project.
Perfecting the deal, Abbah Moro, nominated the project using the Border Communities Development Agency which serves as the supervising agency.
The federal government working to ensure that the project is executed, in 2021, budgeted the sum of N30 million for it and has since made allocations to that effect.
The project was awarded to Stone Works House Investment Limited.
Tracka, a public accountability organization that was at the community to inspect the project, says it has since been abandoned. This is even as the community residents continue to go through severe suffering using the bridge.
Community residents, continue to recount how the abandoned dilapidated bridge is posing a threat to their lives.
Some of the locals who spoke about the bridge narrated how a pregnant woman fell from it and almost died from injuries she sustained.
Tracka, has since appealed to Mr. Abbah Moro, Border Communities Development Agency to reach out to the contractor to fix the bridge.
Constituency projects are nominated by the lawmakers for the needs of their constituents and recommended same to the executive during budgeting; this will help to improve the living condition of the people in their constituents through building local infrastructures.
However, Nigerian experience has shown that Lawmakers do not execute constituency projects as they appear in the national budget, and getting them to account for monies approved for such intervention is always difficult.
And, often, community residents are not aware such monies have been given to their representatives, and that makes accountability very difficult.
MAWA-Foundation could not immediately reach out to the Border Communities Development Agency and Abba Moro Akwa for official responses.