Ministry of Power, Works and Housing on Wednesday threatened to terminate the contract for the dualisation of the Abaji-Koton-Karfe road due to “negligence” by the contractor for five months. The Director of Highways Constructions and Rehabilitation of the ministry, Dayyabu Mamman, made the recommendation yesterday during an inspection by the Minister of State II for Power, Works and Housing, Suleiman Zarma.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the minister in the company of some ministry officials was on an inspection of the federal highways projects in Kogi State, including housing projects. The project, which is being handled by Bulletine Construction Company Ltd at the cost of N15.1 billion, is part of the dualisation of the Abuja-Lokoja Road, section III (Abaji-Koton-Karfe) C/No.5884. The 49.40-km road construction which began on October 12, 2006 with initial completion date of April 11, 2009, but extended completion date of March 12, 2014, has 159.72 as per cent time lapse. “The site has been inactive since December 2017, labourers have not been deployed on site, I recommend for the termination of the project.
“The project is giving us sleepiness nights, all effort to make them work to hasten the completion of the dualisation proved abortive for the past five months,” the director noted while briefing the minister. Mamman, also the Northcentral zone director, noted that the contractor who has spent 12 years on the project with only 54.48 per cent completion and has applied for extension of contract period.
“The contractor has an advance payment of N1.6 billion only to pay back. None rendering approved services which the contractor has received payment for also amounted to the sum of N414.2 million.” The engineer also ascribed delay in the project to high rate of accidents on the road due to untidiness of the site. Mamman recalled that the contractor has been issued warning letters for poor performance and series of meetings have equally been held with the contractor to encourage increase performance but it yielded no result. Meanwhile, the company’s site agent, Peter Omenye, confirmed that the contract was abandoned because of labour related issues concerning workers salaries and entitlement.
According to him, the workers have refused to work until they are paid all their entitlements. Reacting to this, the minister noted that there was every reason to terminate the contract because the contractor has not been on site for five months because of domestic issues.
“It is not because we have any issue with them, we do not have any issue with them rather they have issues with their employees; I understand that they have not been paid salaries or allowances. “We do not owe, so we want construction to continue, we have no reason to be held hostage by any contractor in an event where we are not in default,” he said.
Zarma also inspected the dualisation of Abuja-Lokoja road, section IV (Koton-Karfe-Lokoja) Obajana junction, C/No. 5885 being handled by Gitto Construction Company with 61 per cent completion. The minister had earlier inspected the dualisation project of AbujaAbaji-Lokoja road (section 1), contract No. 5862 including spur to Airport junction He said road project were always costly due to outsourcing of raw materials such as granite and cement including conducting soil test before actual project execution commenced.
