The Kaduna State Council of the National Union of Road Transport Workers has appealed to the federal government to expedite action on the construction and rehabilitation of roads in the state, in order to curb the recurring loss of lives and property.

Hassan Ibrahim, the union’s secretary, made the call on Wednesday in an interview in Kaduna.

Mr Ibrahim said the union records road crashes on a continuous basis, especially along the Abuja-Kaduna highway and the Western bypass in Kaduna, due to the slow pace of construction and rehabilitation of the decapitated roads.

He said, “We want to appeal to the Federal Government to expedite action to compel the construction companies to complete the project as soon as possible so that motorists as well as commuters should not be subjected to this kind of hardship.

“Passing Kaduna, somebody that started a journey from Abuja, spent two hours from Abuja to Kaduna, but he has to spend another two hours before he moved out from Kaduna, which is unfair. The work is going slowly as I wouldn’t know whether it is because of the rainy season that makes the contractors to be foot-dragging on the project.

Mr Ibrahim added, “But, these are major projects that need to be completed on time because of the volume of vehicles that are on transit from other states.”

Mr Ibrahim regretted that some members of the union, particularly those with smaller vehicles, had been forced to leave Kaduna and relocate to operate along the Zuba-Abuja road due to the poor road conditions.

“This is an ugly scenario for us as we are losing revenue in terms of those vehicles that have moved out,” the NURTW official added. “I can confirm to you that the roads especially the Kaduna western bypass is now a death trap as we record accidents that result to loss of lives and property on a continuous basis.”

The official, then, urged the Federal Government to initiate policies that would compel the assigned contractors of the roads under construction to complete the projects, considering the high volume of vehicles that ply the roads.

“If you recall, four weeks ago, after the Sallah festivity, there was a major gridlock along Jere-Kaduna highway for over four hours, which is an incident we don’t pray for it to persist,” he said.

Mr Ibrahim also commended Gov. Uba Sani of Kaduna State’s initiative of centralising all motor parks within Kaduna.

He said, “Before now, there had been operations of illegal motor parks in Kaduna but when the Governor came on board, he noticed that the development had security implications and immediately directed that all illegal motor parks and loading points should relocate to the Mando mega motor park.

“Now, all the transport unions are cohabitating at the Mando mega motor park as loading and offloading are done in an orderly manner while revenue generation to the government and to the union is improving.

“The issue of security has also improved because before, there were issues of ‘one chance’ as operators without knowledge of transportation and with bad habits took advantage of innocent passengers and robbed them on the roads and some had lost their lives.”

Mr Ibrahim assured the state government, as well as the security agencies of the union, of the union’s continued complementary partnership.

He, however, urged the members of the public and intending travellers to always patronise designated motor parks, desist from boarding vehicles along the roads, and ensure they fill the passengers’ manifest during transit.

(NAN)