Oyo State To Build 2 Parks

Oyo State Government has awarded N250 million worth of contracts for the construction of two inter-city motor-parks to stem traffic congestion within the Ibadan metropolis.

Alhaji Yunus Akintunde, the Commissioner for Works and Transport, made this known to newsmen on the outcome of the state executive council’s meeting on Monday.

He said the first phase of the projects would be completed within the next 30 days.

According to Akintunde, the first phase of the project will involve resurfacing and drainage while the second phase will include structural and civil works, provision of infrastructure, including police post, kiosks, toilets and boreholes.

“The idea is to ease transportation. This government has zero tolerance for illegal parking. Government spent a lot of money to dualise some of our roads, not for parking purposes but to ensure free flow of traffic on the roads.”

He said that all the motor parks along the Iwo Road interchange would be relocated to the new Temidire Park along New Ife Road and that all motor parks along Beere-Molete-Challenge would also be relocated to Podo Park on the Old Lagos Road.

According to him, the idea is to de-congest the Ibadan metropolis of the usual heavy traffic along Iwo Road interchange and other densely populated areas.

Akintunde said that Temidire Motor Park alone was about 19,206 square metres and was expected to be completed within one month.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the state government team, led by Deputy Gov. Moses Alake Adeyemo, had earlier inspected the construction works at Temidire Motor Park in Ibadan.

In his contribution, the Chief of Staff (COS) to the governor, Dr. Adeolu Akande, said that the government had given approval for the auditing of transformers procured by the previous administration.

“Despite the claim by the past government to have spent over N1 billion on the procurement of 15 units of transformers for each of the 33 local government councils in the state, residents of the state are still complaining of irregular power supply, caused by the dearth of transformers.

“The executive council agreed that there should be a state-wide auditing of transformers procured by the immediate past government in collaboration with the local government councils.

“There are lots of complaints about these transformers. People were saying that they were not supplied; that they were not to specification and that some of them could not even be located.

“So, council decided that there should be an audit in both quantity and quality of the transformers supplied by the immediate past administration.”

Akande also expressed the government’s readiness to rehabilitate some state-owned hospitals and look into the procurement of equipment in those hospitals as claimed by the previous administration.

Also speaking, Dr. Lateef Olopoenia, the Commissioner for Health, said the government had approved the commencement of the second phase of the Health Mission scheme being undertaken by the government.

According to him, the scheme will commence on 14 November, 2011.

He recalled that the first phase of the programme, which covered 11 local government areas, recorded attendance to 70,000 patients.

Dr Olopoenia said that the November programme would cover all the 33 local government areas in the state.