The Presidency has described the level of ongoing federal roads construction and the rehabilitation in Kogi state as very slow thereby tasking the contractors to speed up to deliver the jobs within the stipulated time frame.
The Special Assistant to the President on Community Engagement North Central, Dr. Abiodun Essieti who made this known during site inspection to various parts of Kogi state on Monday said the level of works ongoing is too slow going by the expectation time for delivery.
The site inspection includes Lokoja-Abuja road, Anyigba road embasmernt and the Abajana flyover, accompanied by some directors of the ministry and the gentlemen of the Press.
Recall that the Minister of Works Engr. David Umahi had last year terminated four road projects in Kogi State for poor performance.
The Minister had during an inspection of roads in the state asked contractors to deploy in more equipment to the sections to be able to meet up time, but months later, the contractors did not adhere to his directive.
Two of the contractors visited, Gitto Sail through did not meet up timeline and did not show signs of deploying more equipment to do so.
The Presidential aide expressed dissatisfaction with the pace of work and called on the Ministry of Works to ensure the job is delivered timely.
She said “No, no not at all as the progress of work done is not encouraging at all. Just few months left and they have only been able to achieve not much. I’m not impressed by the level of progress being made so that’s why the ecstatic is not there.
“That’s why we are pleading with the controller and the contractors to make sure that they intensify more efforts because this is a very busy road and a whole lot of people are expecting more from Mr President on this road.
“So we just want to urge the contractor to do more in terms of bringing more equipment, in terms of collaborating with other people to help make sure that this project is completed in due time, please,”.
The Project Engineer of the Dualization of Lokoja-Benin road being handled by CGC Nigeria Ltd, Abubakar Yaba lamented poor funding of the project.
He attributed the slow pace of work to the paucity of funds and said the project has attained 38 percent completion with time lapse of 90 percent.Yaba however, stated that while over N59bn was certified, only about N54Bn was paid with over N4Bn outstanding.
He said “Then first one commencement date is December 2012. Then phase two commencement date is October 2014. Then the augmentation number commencement date is 4th of July 2024.
According to him, “Then advance payment granted 16.7 billion. Then advance payment received 2.8 billion. Then amount certified to date 59.6 billion.“Amount paid to date 58.8 billion. 54.8 billion, sorry. Then amount outstanding up to date is 4.7 billion. Then our challenge on the project is a budget provision 2025. There’s no provision on this project 2025. Up to date we still have this challenge and a challenge of the outstanding,”.
Responding, Dr. Essiet disagreed with the contractor, and said poor funding shouldn’t be a constraint since the contractor showed proof of financial capacity before being awarded the contract.
She said, “I think one of the things we look at when we give project to contractor is about your capacity and Mr. President assured that Renew Hope Intervention Fund will be channeled to pay this fund. So it’s about you as a contractor to go ahead and finish your job as agreed.
“Because if you mentioned that you didn’t have financial capacity to do this, they wouldn’t have awarded that contract to you. It’s because you assured us that you are going to finish this job. Mr. President assured that Renew Hope Fund will be also channeled to pay for all this.“So that shouldn’t be a delay. So wherever you can mop up funds, I can assure you that Mr. President is going to pay. Wherever you can mop up funds, mop up funds because this project is very critical.
“People are waiting. People are waiting for the completion of this project to ease movement. So please and please, we don’t want to come back the next time and be saying this.
“We have assured you of Mr. President’s commitment and also the Minister of Works is also committed. But show us what you are made of. Show us your capacity that you can finish this road,” she said.
The Controller Works Kogi State Engr. Patiko Musa said complaints raised by the contractors were being attended to the Works Ministry Headquarters Abuja and assured that their requests for the extensions and payments would be met in due course.
