Minister of Works, David Umahi, has called on the National Assembly to prioritize federal roads in their region for speedy execution to facilitate economic growth and development.
Umahi, who said this at a press briefing in Abuja also advised legislators to partner their respective state governors to boost the level of road intervention in their area.
He said this approach would lead to delivery of good quality roads within an expected period.
His words, “We have so many projects that are ongoing but are not really going on, and the reason is happening because of our budgeting system, whereby during budgeting, you know, the roads that will cost N10bn, in the first appropriation you allocate N150bn.
“What do you expect a contractor to do when you have given him the road that the average cost for a medium size contractor for 1km of road is between N500m – N700m, he will put it in his pocket and tell you that he has set up his site office next year you give him another hundred N150m he will tell you purchased materials.
“He will never go on site and you will not see it, so if you give N150m in any road project, I will expect you to award the contract of N600m and every year you release N150m that is N600m and they will make sure that you have one kilometer of road because by the next administration whether it is from the national assembly or from the senate, the person may not be there and what happens to the project is that the job is not funded and the job is abandoned.
“We have so many of our projects in this kind of category, and we do not know what to do with it. This is an issue I will be appealing to the national assembly through the 2023 supplementary budget proposal to return over N650bn that is taken away in most of the ongoing projects.
“Some of these projects are about 80 per cent completion, we have those of 70 per cent, 90 per cent completion rate. It is very dangerous in the sense that the contractors will have to continue to put their equipment on site, and we have to pay for that.
“Again, the procurement law allows that if certificates have been generated and expire after 50 days, these are not the payment I would like to pay for, so what I try to do is to run away from that.
He said he would be seeking the support of the national assembly in returning the budget which it vired out for other purposes to be returned to complete the roads that have reached advanced stages of completion so that they can serve the people for faster and timely movement of farm produce to boost the economy, take children to school and ensure faster movement of patient to the hospitals as the case may be.
“I will be writing the national assembly to see that these are almost completed projects and we are almost at the peak of our rainy season, so that these funds could be returned back through the 2023 supplementary budget. This is very important, we also need to get the national assembly on the budgetary system. Is a solution that we have to find out and how it must work.
“I was thinking that national assembly members should hold a meeting with their governors and stakeholders and put in very priority projects in their regions so that if for example, the ministry of works is going to have this x number of funds for and this x is going to the national assembly, let them come and say based on this and the projection of four years, this is the project we want to do. That is what will help. Also let their constituency know that this is a project done by the national assembly.
“Everybody want the legislators in their state to push for projects and push and push but there is no need of pushing on piecemeal basis and nothing is completed with so much motion and there is no movement, is a decision that the national assembly must have to take.
“So we are succeeding on tax credit like NNPC, is funding 50% of the project, so am going to be writing to Mr. President to seek his directive of what to be done. The first thing I have to do is to ensure that when a contractor is working on a dualized road to stick to one lane so we have one durable lane that we are going to ply on.
“And to Start procurement all at the same time, this is very important. To me it is better to build 50km of road that is motorabe and durable than to build 100km of road that will fail in the next few weeks.
“I will be discussing with the DG of PPP that we will vary the contracts by the reason of the concrete option and the way the contingency cannot carry the difference we will have to define it.”
Umahi also said that his supervision of the ministry of works would witness the redirection of job delivery by Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) on their interventions in various states.
The Minister of Works said every state governor within whose domain FERMA was going to intervene must sign off the contract and certify that the roads are good else he would not approve such a job consequently he has suspended all approvals for FERMA.
According to him, “I’m changing the scope of FERMA, if FERMA want to intervene on any route, commissioner of works of that state through the governor, must go for confirmation and they must agree with on what they are going to prepare and when the job is done, I want the commissioner to sign off the project.
“I was a governor, and there were some projects that came before me, which I know very well that as the governor of the state, I was the one maintaining it but people who sleep here in Abuja were making claims. It is not going to work under me.
“We are just saying, If you have anywhere you want to intervene, you cannot be more catholic than the Pope, work with the governor of the state through the commissioners, so that they will tell you the most difficult place that is a source of worry to them that they are not able to fix.
“So I have turned down the approval for new projects by FERMA until that is done and even if the job is completed I will not approve it except it is signed off by the respective commissioner on the instructions of the governors. It may be painful, but I think that is the right thing to do.
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