The Federal Government of Nigeria, has disclosed that it terminated the contract for the rehabilitation of the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano highway, earlier awarded to Julius Berger due to unethical practices, and failure to abide by the contract terms.
The Minister of Works, Engr. Dave Umahi, said when reawarded, the project would be carried out using concrete instead of asphalt, noting that the decision to switch from using asphalt for the construction of the road will save the federal government over N640 billion.
Addressing issues surrounding the slow pace of work on the project before the Ad-hoc Committee of the House of Representatives for the Monitoring of the said project, the Minister expressed displeasure that the project, which he said was uncompleted and shoddily executed, has lasting strength far more than the completion target.
“By my engagement of my approach, I saved the nation N640 billion from Julius Berger. If we had accepted to do the job for N1.5 trillion. Now we are not, we are saving the country over N640 billion. And we are improving on the architecture of the road.
“The problem of Berger is not just a problem of cost. We said in our conditions for acceptance that this project must be completed in 14 months. This project is non-vary project unless the dollar goes beyond N2000 per dollar. They refused all those conditions and they set booby traps for us”, he said, adding that the Nigerian government acted within its rights in terminating the contract.
However, Julius Berger blamed the slow pace of work on poor funding, policy changes, as its management team which earlier appeared before the Committee, led by Mr Benjamin Bott disclosed that the firm had not been paid for works done for a year running, adding that the work stopped at a point because government came with the option of concrete instead of asphalt for the construction.
Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Aminu Jaji, subsequently directed that all relevant documents related to the project be submitted so they can be better guided in addressing the issues.
“Ours is we want the contractor to go back to site,” he said.
