Geography

Infrastructure provision and its availability is the basis for assessing the status of any spatial system and determination of the quality of life of a people. However, efforts at provision over time has met several barriers. The study examined the barriers to infrastructural provision in three rural communities in Esit Eket local government areas of Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. They were sampled based on being oil/gas producing communities and having knowledge/interactions with oil/gas multinationals. 83 copies of questionnaire were administered proportionately using the systematic sampling. It adopted the Standard Score and Principal Components analytical techniques which were analyzed statistically in SPSS while spatial analysis was in a GIS environment. The Standard Score (Z score) ranked the barriers on the bases of their composite scores while the principal components analysis reduced the data sets of the barriers to the most significant ones. The result showed that corruption is the most severe and highest barrier in the study area, with a z score of 1.71, followed by the use of non-local contractors with a z score of 1.41. The result also classified the barriers into three components namely technical barriers, environmental barriers and management barriers with Etebi faced more with technical barriers. While Edor Atai is faced with environmental barriers and management barriers, Ntak Inyang is faced more with environmental barriers. The paper recommends needs assessment, community participation in provision process and constant consultation between donors and communities during provision process in a bit to promote projects ownership, sense of belonging from the beneficiaries and transparency from donors.