By Richard Duke
•As part of Governor Ayade's proposal to
kickstart the construction of Calas Vegas City at Iyata (also known as Twin
Island/Duke Town Extension); notices of invitations to tender for aspects of
the construction have just ended last week.
•The notice of invitation to tender to
reputable contractors were for the dredging and sand filling of Calas Vegas
City Phase 1 and also for the clearing, layout/infrastructure design and jetty
construction for the new city.
•Work on project will be supervised by
the Ministry of New Cities Development and according to the Commissioner,
Ekpungu, the work will commence shortly.
•It would be recalled that the Government
of Cross River State is proposing the development and expansion of the Calabar
City as part of His Excellency, Sen. (Prof) Ben Ayade’s desire of creating new
cities to mitigate the intense shortage of Housing across the entire
State.
•Ayade had previously explained that the
residential area at Calasvegas would be given at no cost, but only to worthy
individuals committed to invest as soon as land is allocated to them. It would
be useful to see the design layout being proposed by the contractors.
•Governor Ayade had also previously
stated that Certificates of Occupancy would also be awarded as soon as the land
was allocated to the would be prospective builders for their holiday homes.
•We do hope that special allocation
consideration would be given to the aboriginal indigenous community who
actually own the land for community development and social housing once the
project has been executed.
•This should not be an exclusive pet
project destination for the few moneybags; it should be a place where the
hospitable and strong cultural heritage of Calabar is still retained in line
with the ideals of UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage initiative.
•We also believe that the government
would be in frequent consultation with the host community especially regarding
the yet to be published Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the new
project
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