Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Barr. Nyesom Wike, has vowed not to re-award the contract for the maintenance of the International Conference Centre to a local firm.
Wike, who stated this on Thursday during the inspection of the ongoing rehabilitation of the facility, said the dilapidated condition his administration met at the Centre was a result of the failure of the previous indigenous company to carry out the maintenance it was paid to do.
While assuring that the comprehensive rehabilitation of the International Conference Centre, which began in October 2024, will be completed before May, the minister said the contract for the maintenance of the facility will henceforth be awarded to Julius Berger.
He also hinted that plans are underway to construct a second International Conference Centre in the capital city, as the current one is being overwhelmed by a plethora of events.
“First of all, it’s going to attract a lot of activities, and what we’re trying to do now is that it’s no longer going to be business as usual. You know what happened last time? That it was given out to one senator who was making money, and then tried to destroy that edifice.
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“When we finish, we’re going to have a maintenance contract with Julius Berger, where we’ll pay them, and then they will be maintaining the place. One problem we have in the society is lack of maintenance culture, which is very bad. “And then people will come and rent it and use it, and they will make money from there to be able to pay the company that will maintain it.
“I mean, Nigeria needs an international conference centre of standard, as compared to any other one in the world. Nowhere it was built. So I think it’s going to attract a lot of economic activities.
“At the time it was built, every time people went to the International Conference Centre, and I thought by now we were going to build the second one. But let us maintain the one we have first, before we talk about the second one,” he said.
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