By Dele Ogbodo
The Minister of Works Engr. David Umahi, on Tuesday lambasted the House of Representatives Committee Chair on Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA), Hon. Aderemi Abasi Oseni, over his ignorance, unguarded and misguided outburst especially on the state of contracts road contracts awarded since 2007.
Addressing a cross section of the media on the state of ongoing road rehabilitation, award of contracts and President Bola Tinubu legacy road infrastructure roll out, the Minister while tutoring the law maker said (Hon. Oseni’s) warped view and lack of knowledge coupled with his unprovoked attack as an inconceivable embarrassment demeaning to his person as Minister and the Ministry that he supervises.
The Minister referred to Oseni’s uncouth misinformation as an overdrive monologue in a skewed social video image as neither he nor his Permanent Secretary was in such a meeting where the said Chairman of House Committee on FERMA was said to be addressing the Minister of Works.
Umahi, said: “Oseni’s view and take was no doubt akin to darkening counsel without knowledge to vilify him over the bad state of over 2, 604 Federal roads inherited from previous administrations.”
He added that House of Reps member deliberately chose to be ill-informed and decided to consign himself in the dark on the scintillating records of the various interventions made by President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope administration, adding that despite the impact of the various climate change on the state of the roads the Ministry has made a great difference in the public transport trajectory of Nigeria.
He said, “I have has however chosen to refrain from joining issues with the said House Committee Chairman on FERMA because of the respect he has for the hallowed institution of the National Assembly, the Senate President and the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives.
He said, “For the respect of Mr. Speaker, and of course the Senate President and the National Assembly that I belong to, I will refrain myself from joining issues with 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 god so I will not join issues with him.”
The Minister, added that Oseni, has a hidden agenda in his shadow boxing a terrain that he has no knowledge about because he veered off track to discuss budget issues while leaving his oversight function of FERMA operations and activities.
According to Umahi, Oseni’s resort to address the the House Committee on FERMA while he was not physically present was deliberate, ill-motivated, misguided, self-serving and nothing but a vicious propaganda typical of a proxy representing the interest of nonconforming contractors who have constituted themselves into adversaries against the Federal Ministry of Works for insisting on best practices in project pricing, variation on price and foreign exchange differentials.
He said: “There is no doubt that the vituperations of the House Committee Chairman on FERMA were from the abundance of his heart, but to say that all the roads across the country have failed for the failure of the Minister of Works to address the existing road with the resources approved or for his failure to deploy the N300 billon supplementary fund approved for him.
“Or that he is concentrating his energy on the less priority issues shows that the House Committee Chairman on FERMA either has little knowledge of the volume of road infrastructure deficits inherited from successive administrations and cost requirements for road construction or that he deliberately refused, ignored and neglected to appreciate the Renewed Hope administration’s intervention milestones or he is playing to the gallery on the prompting of the nonconforming contractors.
“And let me say to him that the projects President Tinubu inherited were a total of 2,604 projects and as at May 29, 2023, the total cost was N13 trillion. That’s what the President inherited and a debt to contractors of N1.6 trillion.
“When you look at the variation by the reason of the subsidy removal, by the reason of the floating of the dollar, you’ll find out that if you review all these projects, you will see that you will get over N19 trillion for the total ongoing projects.
“President Tinubu has done what no other President has done as manifested all the projects in the 2024 budget with the hope to give him time to look for resources, including loans, to do these projects.
“I wasn’t in that meeting where the House member was said to be addressing me, and there is no way I was going to complain of resources to fix our roads because Mr. President has given very special attention to the Federal Ministry of Works.
“The President has paid so much attention to the sufferings of Nigerians vis-a-vis the road situation, and the ministry is not the only ministry in Nigeria. Mr. President has a lot of other challenging situations and competing demands, yet he has given priority attention to the Ministry of Works.”
The Minister noted that the utterances of the committee chair were no doubt aimed at inciting the public against the government that brought him on board as it is a common sense that a person of his level and profession ought to know the method statement required of road construction.
He said, “There is no way you expect some projects that have lasted 20 years, 18 years, 17 years to be done in one year. And if he says he’s an engineer, he should try and understand the processes that are involved in the Ministry of Works.
“It’s different from his procurement of fertilizer with his constituency project. They are two different things. You have to go to the field, you have to measure the project, you have to design it, and you have to do in-house procurement to look at it.”
He further said, “The method deployed in the construction will require you to do earthwork, to compact etc and if you don’t give it one month and you start to put stone base and asphalt, it will fail.
Minister views it as a gross violation of parliamentary procedure for the Chairman of the House Committee on FERMA to invade the legislative powers of the Senate and House Committees on Works which have been carrying out oversight functions on the Ministry and are conversant with the achievements and challenges of the Ministry.
Umahi, berated Oseni for acting outside the legislative competence of his committee.
While highlighting the modest achievements of the ministry across the six Geo-Political zones, the Minister thanked the President for the unprecedented attention he has given in bridging the funding gap on the inherited projects, adding: “What we did is that we used over 90% of these funds to keep all the inherited projects alive as directed by the President because a project has to be alive and in the budget before you can look for funds to assist it to be completed.
“That’s what we’ve done, and so for those who are bitter that we have no projects to award to them, this is the reality.”
“Over 2,600 projects plus 330 supplementary projects plus the new projects in 2024 is not a tea party. It requires commitment, and it requires dedication, which we are doing. We work on Saturday, Sundays, and Public Holidays, and somebody will say we are giving attention to less priority issues without mentioning those less priority issues that we are giving attention to.”