Since his appointment as the minister of works, Senator Engineer David Umahi, immediate-past governor of Ebonyi state, has shown that he’s not afraid of brandishing his boxing gloves at all manner of people and problems. His first combat was against workers in his ministry when he locked them out, purportedly, for exhibiting acts that could be described as truancy. He insisted that under his watch, lateness to work and all forms of indiscipline would not be tolerated.
In response, the angry workers happily took the other corner of the ring with chants of Umahi must go, having locked him in. Perhaps, an unseen referee intervened and a very remorseful Umahi apologised to his workers who also acknowledged their role in the fracas and promised to make amends. Thus, Umahi kissed and made up with his staff and normalcy has since returned to the ministry.
In pretty much the same fashion as the locking out of his ministry’s staff, Dave Umahi has shut the door against an existing road infrastructure policy, when he announced a new road policy – reinforced concrete roads. The switch from asphaltic roads to concrete road technology is the new direction of the ministry under his watch.
In fairness to the minister, he clearly outlined government’s reasons for making the policy switch to include a great deal of sharp practices in the execution of asphalt roads, and the high cost of bitumen/asphalt which, he said, led importers of the substance to go for the lowest quality that ends up with additives. Reasons also adduced include a possibility of employment opportunities for Nigerians expected to either be engaged to increase the manufacturing of cement, a major component of the concrete road technology or work on the concrete roads themselves.
In the unfolding narrative, Umahi appears to have put the blame for the switch in road construction policy on road contractors and unscrupulous people in his ministry for conniving to sabotage quality in the road construction system. Using presidential name dropping, guilt tripping and baiting, Umahi craftily deployed a well-oiled media machine and all the experience from his time as governor to roundly demonise Nigeria’s road contractors.
Faced with a practiced operative who understands the game of media jousting and technical knock outs, road contractors appear to have been slalomed into silence. All Nigerians have been shown by Umahi are the rosy side of switching to concrete road technology. The minister even went as far as pointing out to anyone who doubts his assertions that concrete technology is better for Nigerian roads to the ports of Lagos and conveniently to Ebonyi, the state where he was governor and adopted concrete technology for road infrastructure to great effect.
Interestingly, photos have emerged in the social media showing many failed portions of his concrete road technology in Ebonyi. Although, in fairness, no one said concrete roads are perfect, but the impression Umahi creates is of roads that will never fail for, at least, 40 years. However, on the strength of the photos on the social media, assuming they were truly from Umahi’s concrete roads in Ebonyi, then his assertions may have been greatly exaggerated.
Yet, that won’t be the biggest fact that Nigerians may have been misled on or shielded from; that’ll be the cost of importing machinery to drive the policy switch to concrete. In these days of Forex paucity and liquidity uncertainty, it amounts to a herculean, even unreasonable, task to demand that contractors ditch their asphalt equipment to start importing whole new machines, especially since a successive minister could render them useless without scruples or remorse.
The naira is only now beginning to find its bearing. So, imagine if all Nigeria’s road contractors, and they are many, besiege the Forex market in search of dollars with which to import machinery to execute Umahi’s concrete roads. The consequence, perhaps unintended, becomes glaring on the economy. Unless the federal government commits to finding ways of making Forex available to these contractors, it will be unfair to tie them to the kind of deadlines and Riot Act Umahi has been reading to them. And, nothing can be more insensitive than to leave contractors at the mercy of currency speculators.
Another possible consequence, perhaps, also unintended, is the expectation of a demand-pull price hike on cement. I may not be an economist, but my elementary understanding of the effect of demand and supply on prices tells me that, should all road contractors start purchasing very high volumes of cement from Nigeria’s almost duopolistic cement market to build concrete road pavements, I will expect a cement supply shortfall, and this will translate into higher prices for the commodity.
Therefore, whereas Umahi’s job projection associated with increased demand for cement may hold true, the impact of exponentially increased demands on cement prices, if true, may contribute to the deepening of another national problem – housing – which, interestingly, used to be under the ministry he now oversees.
Even though his predecessor in the combined works and housing ministry, Babatunde Raji Fashola, disproved claims of a 17 million housing deficit, he acknowledged that there’s a very wide gap that needs to be plugged. Fashola also acknowledged that Nigerians have been at the forefront of providing housing for themselves with government simply augmenting the situation with homes for those with access. It is no wonder then, that Nigerians recently went agog with jubilation when BUA Cement announced a price slash on the factory price of its cement. That news excited Nigerians for obvious reasons. It, therefore, becomes a disservice to Nigerians scraping to erect roofs over their heads if government’s policy in one sector leads to an increase in the price of cement.
There could even be a legal side to the minister’s decision to switch to concrete roads. Although, I have not seen the contract entered into between the federal government and road contractors, I believe it would amount to a breach to whimsically change the terms of a contract in the manner done by Umahi, especially as some contracts may have been executed upwards of 80%. A better model would have been to set a new benchmark going forward.
So, instead of asking contractors who have executed asphalt road contracts upwards of 50% of their contracts to jettison the technology for cement, he could simply have implemented a new quality regime for the remaining part of running contracts. That way, any contractor bidding for new job(s) will come safe in the knowledge that the minister prefers concrete to asphalt and can either accept to build reinforced concrete road or allow those interested to bid. Simple.
It must also be said, that Umahi’s attempt to indict contractors for the shady practices in the use of asphalt to construct low quality roads is unfortunate. Without quite knowing it, that attempt amounts instead to an indictment on the ministry of works whose responsibility it is to either directly undertake quality control checks, measurement and evaluation or appoint consultants to do same on its behalf. Makes one wonder what instruments have been put in place to shield the deployment of concrete technology from getting hijacked by the monumental corruption in the ministry of works which practically goads contractors into compromising standards in exchange for expedited processing of documents.
While I have had cause to commend Umahi who I believe is one of the most active ministers of the Tinubu administration so far, and that his decision to switch to concrete road technology may have been borne out of a genuine desire to transform Nigeria’s critical road infrastructure, I think it is also very important to pay attention to his approach for delivering on that very important mandate which so far appears to be premised on the belief that asphalt can be compromised but not reinforced concrete. That’s very faulty indeed.
In the light of this, the minister must strive to eliminate even the tiniest chance that his new road policy will end up unearthing unintended consequences that may create an even more vociferous existential crisis. I will bet that President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope agenda was never designed to shift goalposts or rob Peter to pay Paul. Any decision that will deliver some gains to one sector and worsen the plight of Nigerians in another sector deserves to be re-examined, reviewed, and retooled in collaboration with stakeholders in that value chain. Nigerians deserve this much, and more.
Kera is the publisher of Daylight Reporters
