By Hillary Asemota
The Permanent Secretary of Ecological Project Office (EPO), Mr. Shehu Ibrahim, has tasked contractors and consultants handling various projects of the office to sustain quality project delivery.
At the meeting which held at the Federal Secretariat, Abuja, he urged for more commitment and maintenance of set guidelines for the implementation of the new set of approved ecological projects.
He reiterated that the Office has already created a brand for itself through previous project executions and expressed optimism that it would be sustained.
Ibrahim, stated this during a meeting with stakeholders on the execution of the first and second quarter 2022 projects recently approved by President Muhammadu Buhari.
He commended the immediate past Permanent Secretary, Dr. Habiba Lawal, for the impressive and laudable projects executed during her tenure and stated that going forward, more layers of monitoring and evaluation of projects have been added to consolidate on previously attained records.
The Permanent Secretary said EPO contracts are emergency ones which are time bound and specific in scope of intervention and therefore would not accommodate variations of the contracts sum.
He admonished the contractors and consultants to keep to the contractual agreements as no variations of the contracts will be entertained.
Ibrahim, further urged the contractors to provide Community Social Responsibility (CSR) as embedded in the contracts, be friendly and diplomatic with the benefitting communities in order to enjoy harmonious relationship with them throughout the project duration.
In his welcome address, the Director, Pollution Control, Mr. Clinton Igwe, lauded the excellent performance of the Ecological Project Office, stating that in this office: “We pride ourselves as one Federal Government Office that follows through all our projects from initiation, completion, commissioning and handing-over of the projects to the communities.”
He informed that the Office has been able to record 353 number of approved projects, 300 number of projects fully completed with 53 projects still on-going from 2015 to date. He encouraged the Consultants and the Contractors to be attentive during the meeting as it will pay off positively and aid in their project executions.
Reeling out the guidelines for the project implementation, Director, Soil Erosion and Flood Control, Mr. Abubakar Takuma and Director, Drought, Desertification and Coastal Zones Management, Mr. Haruna Bello respectively, stated that the Consultants are the official representatives of the Office and that they are to carry out the directives from EPO and not from the contractors, they are to ensure that signposts are erected at sites for easy identification; ensure periodic site meetings at project sites and insist on timelines set for the projects.
In addition, they said, request for payments must be accompanied with original invoice and not computer printouts, ensure that project offices are provided at all the project sites and that all the stakeholders(contractors, consultants and the clients) must participate in the measurement of permanent works before any Interim Payment Certificate( IPC) is raised.
The Director, Procurement, Mallam Abdullahi Mohammed on his part advised the contractors and consultants to abide by the provisions in the procurement Act in the execution of their projects to avoid delay in processing their documents for payments.
Delivering the vote of thanks on behalf of the consultants and contractors, Mr. Presly Asemota of Azikel Group Limited, commended the Permanent Secretary for convening the meeting which he said has provided clarity to some of the issues often encountered during some project executions and assured that henceforth, they will be executing projects with better understanding and keep to the established guidelines.
