The Minister of Works, Sen. Dave Umahi has stopped some road construction in the Southeast pending the review of the existing and additional contracts.
Umahi gave the directive on Thursday in Enugu during the inspection of some ongoing construction/rehabilitation of federal roads across states in the South-East.
He equally directed the contractor handling the Mmaku road seven days to return to the site to cover the binder course.
He also directed that the right-hand side of the Enugu-Onitsha expressway be done with concrete to save costs.
“I discovered something unprofessional where contractors put a binder course and leave it up to five to eight years, and within that period, the binder course fails.
“Henceforth, no contractor will leave the binder course for more than one month without covering it because the binder course admits water which affects subgrade.
“It is not healthy for contractors as they lose money for the equipment they are using to maintain the work,” he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the binder course is an intermediate, bitumen-bound aggregate layer placed between the base layer and the surface of an asphalt pavement.
The minister explained that Nigerian roads failed because of the bad asphalt placed on them as a result of adulterated bitumen imported into the country.
According to him, most of our roads are not failing because of sub-base or subgrade but fail because of bad asphalt placed on them.
“So the fight of turning to concrete is a continuous one, and we will not give up until our roads are able to last up to 30 years to 40 years without maintenance when built.”
