…Says N300bn supplementary budget’ll be used as palliative, ongoing works
By Hillary Asemota
The Minister of Works, Engr. David Umahi, has said that President Bola Tinubu Administration inherited N6 trillion debt burden from the immediate past administration on road infrastructure.
He said it is comforting too know that President Tinubu, is courageous as he had promised to tackle the problems head-on which he has started to do not minding the debt burden inherited especially the funding gap of over N6 trillion from most of the inherited on-going road projects.
In a statement made available to Journalists covering the sector, Engr. Umahi, said the attention of the Ministry of Works was recently drawn to the concerns of the public on the deplorable situations in some sections of the federal roads throughout the federation as reported in many media platforms, especially social media, the front page, pages 4,5,6 and 14 of the publication of a national newspaper dated 26th Novembe
He said: “Most of the sections of the roads frequently reported but definitely not exhaustive are: the Makurdi-Nsukka 9th Mile Road, East West Road, Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway, Benin bypass road, collapsed bridges on Enugu- Port Harcourt road, collapsed bridges of Shandam-Plateau State, Kaduna- Zaria road and Gombe-Bauchi.”
Engr. Umahi, in a signed statement made available to the media, quoted President Bola Tinubu, as saying that he is aware of the state of our road infrastructure which he inherited on the 29th day of May 2023.
He said: “Without prejudice to all the good efforts of the past administration in road infrastructure development which they tackled within the limit of their resources, the work to be done to change the ugly state of our roads is quite enormous.”
According to him, the President has since reeled out plans of commitment, consistence, and innovations towards actualizing a sustainable road infrastructure development throughout the country.
“He has just approved a 2023 supplementary budget of ₦300 billion for the Ministry of Works comprising of ₦110 billion for immediate palliative works in 36 States and FCT and ₦200 billion for continuation of most of the inherited ongoing projects and very few new but critical road projects
“President has directed that works in those palliative projects must be commenced before 1st December 2023, while observing all due process.
“On the sections being frequently complained of by the public in all regions of the North and South of the country, the President has equally isolated them and directed immediate actions on them and indeed work has started on all such roads.” He said.
Engr. Umahi, said the public can crosscheck the Ministry’s claims and report back.
According to him, the engagements of the Federal Ministry of Works will not be limited to these isolated reported cases but shall be holistic in our approach through these approved palliative measures and the interventions of FERMA in all the 36 States and FCT.
He urged the to assist the Federal Ministry of Works and FERMA by supervising the contractors that will be engaged in these palliative works and indeed all ongoing projects of the Federal Ministry of Works and FERMA.
According to him, it is the right of every Nigerian to have value for their money deployed to the road infrastructure sector and therefore must show both interest and passion in all the ongoing projects by the Federal Ministry of Works and FERMA, and indeed all projects of the Federal, State and Local governments.
All poorly constructed roads are to be snapped and reported immediately to the following contacts:-08030986263 or 08037086137, showing the name of the contractor, the location and type of contract and defects observed.
The Ministry will document such reports, verify and take effective action to correct such infractions. The Federal Ministry of Works shall also periodically recognize publicly those who made such reports that are genuine in a public engagement forum to be hosted quarterly by the Federal Ministry of Works and will sanction such erring contractors publicly too.
On comparison between Concrete pavement and use of asphalt for road construction, he said the Ministry is shocked to observe the various acts of darkening counsel without knowledge on the position of the Ministry on the use of Asphalt and concrete pavement in the development of our road infrastructure by people who have vowed not to release their hands off the brake of our road infrastructure development just for their selfish gains.
According to him, the Ministry has at no time banned the use of asphalt or directed that concrete pavement shall be the only means of road pavement structure.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the new policy of the Ministry is: Contractors for all the ongoing projects are simply requested to have a choice to continue to use asphalt or have their projects redesigned on concrete at no extra cost to government following the under-listed conditions:
“Use of asphalt: contractors shall stick to only 5% Variation on Price
(VoP) in line with the signed contract agreement throughout the period of the project and the signed contract shall not be subject to review especially on bituminous items, the thickness of the asphalt pavement as designed must be strictly adhered to by all such contractors and the design shelve life for the asphalt (at least 15 years) shall be guaranteed by issuing an insurance bond through a reputable insurance company in favour of the federal government.
“This, he said is in line with Article 2 of the signed contract and clause 51of the general conditions of contract (which is part of the documents forming the signed contract with contractors which authorize the client through the Engineer to change the scope of the work, the quantity of the work, the quality of the work as the client may deem fit at any time) for all the ongoing projects.”
These directives to the contractors, he added do not in any way violate the Ministry’s signed agreement with the contractors.
For the use of concrete, contractors must abide by the 5% VoP and 50 years design shelve life using concrete grade 40.
According to him, those who are complaining and de-marketing this policy are simply those who do not wish Nigeria well and they are the same people that use adulterated bitumen in their projects while putting pressure on our naira through the importation of adulterated bitumen instead of developing our abundant God given bitumen deposits in Ogun State and other parts of Nigeria.
Insofar as this new policy has not violated any law, he added that the Ministry is forging ahead with this new policy, adding that as at today, most of the ongoing projects are still ongoing with asphalt pavement in line with this new policy while some are redesigned on concrete pavement, depending on the terrain and with full understanding of the affected contractors of those projects.
The Minister explained that government concerned with the supervision of our projects and effective 1st of December 2023, there will be a revolution in the ways and methods the Ministry supervises her projects nationwide.
He said government will not spare anyone found culpable in his or her assignment.
According to him, Director of Works of the 36 States and FCT and FERMA have been directed to audit all projects in their States and FCT especially equipment on and off sites with their pictures, personnel of contractors, status of all projects including financial status (contract sum, date of award, period of construction and time table, amount paid, challenges, percentage of work completion, augmentation of project if any, VoP claims).
This assignment, he said must be completed before 30th November 2023. Note that this directive was given since the past two months, the Minister, said.
“The Ministry wishes to thank the President for his directive that all inherited projects from the past administration be continued while he makes frantic efforts to source for funds for the completion of these ongoing projects and the critical new ones within his 1st 4 years of his divine 8 years of purposeful and fruitful divine administration through the power of God who divinely brought him to leadership at this critical moment of our nation’s history.
“On the part of the staff of the Federal Ministry of Works, I pledge to strictly and Godly follow the divine Renewed Hope Agenda of Mr President, and God willing, we shall continue to support Mr President and deepen the good efforts of Mr. President in all our road infrastructure development.” He said.