In a proactive bid to forestall the flooding predictions for Ibadan during the ongoing rainy season, the Ibadan Urban Flood Management Project (IUFMP) has launched dredging of 45 rivers and streams as well as desilting of blocked drains at different locations across the 11 local government areas in Ibadan metropolis.
A statement on Friday by the Communication Consultant, IUFMP, Abiodun Adefioye, said the roll-out is in furtherance of the approval of the Executive Governor of Oyo State, Engr. Seyi Makinde, for the assignment and the earlier clearance of same by the World Bank.
“The dredging activity sub-project, which was packaged into four lots, was competitively bid for by over twenty duly qualified companies, resulting in the emergence of four successful bidders, namely: Transcend Construction Limited (Lot 1), Dephany Ventures Limited (Lot 2), Dutum Company Limited (Lot 3), and Lopek Engineering & Construction Limited (Lot 4). In the same vein, four topnotch engineering professionals have been engaged as the supervising consultants, one each for the four lots.
“To flag off the assignment, a kick-off meeting has been held with the contractors and supervising engineers, with members of the Project Implementation Unit (PIU) of IUFMP as well as officials of the relevant Ministries in attendance.
“While declaring the meeting open, the Ag. Project Coordinator of IUFMP, Engr. Olasunkanmi Sokeye, explained that the approval of His Excellency, Engr. Seyi Makinde for the task was essentially to protect the lives and property of people against any losses from flooding. He added that the imperative of executing the task in line with the specified engineering requirements and in strict compliance with environmental and social safeguards standards cannot be compromised. The dredging works, which consist of eleven sites each for Lots 1 to 3 and twelve locations for Lot 4, is to be executed within six weeks.
“It would be recalled that dredging of rivers/streams and desilting of blocked drains in Ibadan have been carried out as a palliative component of the IUFMP mandate since 2016, to complement the Project’s ongoing implementation of reconstruction of damaged hydraulic infrastructure across the city. The exercise has helped to enhance the capacity of the many water channels within the city to discharge flood water, thus boosting the flooding resilience index of the metropolis. Over the years, a cumulative length of 339,412 meters of rivers and streams had been dredged spanning different locations in Ibadan,” the statement read.
