Nigerian Minister of Works, Senator (Engr) David Umahi has hit back at the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA), Remi Oseni who accused the Minister of mispriority during interactive session on Thursday.
Umahi in a Press Conference at the Ministry’s Headquarter, Abuja on Monday said the Rep thought possibly working with some contractors who are not happy with the reform in Works Ministry, could work for his removal in office.
Apparently, the Minister claimed this was Oseni’s anger, saying that it’s the basic reason for him to have veered off totally from the issues for discussion, while stated that the Rep’s type is very damaging to the very wonderful institution, the 10th National Assembly.
Umahi said the respect for the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and of course the Senate President, and the National Assembly Institution that he belong to, will refrain him from joining issues with the Rep committee chair.
According to him, “He said I have failed. And if a blind man is to assess you, your guess is as good as mine. Because if he has no knowledge of anything, then his knowledge becomes his gut. So I will not join issues with him. But no one in life ever said that I failed”.
Umahi who boldly said he has never failed in anything he involved in, asked the Rep to go and check his pedigree from graduation and during the university, as a businessman, when he became party chairman, deputy Governor, Senator, and now Minister.
The Minister said, “I believe that God has to be with him to attain half of what I’ve attained in life. So I will not join issues with him because I have very tremendous respect for Mr. Speaker and the National Assembly. But I will try to put some clarification. “He said I was involved in less priority issues in Ministry of Works. Yes, he’s right. Because he sounded as if he was representing the contractors. And what were the issues in Ministry of Works? The issue of variation of price, VOP”, he added.
The Minister explained that the VOP was the very terrible program that was eroding the little resources the Ministry put in the budget to do projects. “Before we came on board, there were these issues of variation of price. There were these issues of CPI. That is a foreign exchange differential”.
He added that, “Some contractors were claiming them. Essentially, two of them are the same. But that less priority that he talked about was that we stopped them. And we have no regrets stopping them. There’s no reason why we should award projects in the month of October and in the month of November”.
Umahi made it clear that the President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu inherited 2,604 projects in total, revealed that as of May 29, 2023, total cost was $13 trillion and debt to contractors was of $1.6 trillion. He said, “Looking at the variation by reason of subsidy remover, by the reason of the floating of the dollar, you will see that you will get over $19 trillion, the total ongoing projects”.
Umahi hailed the President for manifesting all the projects in 2024 budget with the hope to give time to look for resources, including loans to do these projects, saying Tinubu paid so much attention to the sufferings of Nigerians vis-a-vis the road situation. “That’s why in 2023 supplementary, he approved $300 billion to take care of a number of palliatives”, he said.
The Minister told the Press that by next week, the Ministry is going to publish what success it has achieved in those $300 billion projects. “We used it to procure over 330 roads, palliatives, and bridge repairs, which were properly procured and properly executed.
“Today, we have achieved over 85% completion. And so when we publish it, I want him to go there, if he can leave his oversight in FEMA, and he can go and check these projects. I’m going to put the phone number of the contractors and then put the status and he can verify.
“And when he verifies, I request that he tenders an all-reserved apology because all he did was to represent the contractors and incite the public against the government that brought him in. And it’s very unfortunate because when you darken counsel without knowledge, you are inciting the public. So we’re going to publish the projects”, he said.
