Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, on Monday, said the President Bola Tinubu-led administration inherited N13.8 trillion contracts.
He equally said despite gulping over N336billion and officially inaugurated, the 2nd Niger Bridge would remain largely “inoperative” without the construction of critical approach roads and bypasses in both the Asaba and Onitsha ends of the bridge in Delta and Anambra, respectively.
The bridge had been inaugurated by the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari before its tenure ended on May 29, 2023.
The critical bypasses and access roads yet undone are 2A and 2B, which were awarded to Julius Berger Plc and Reynolds Construction Company Limited respectively with an estimated cost of N200bn, “but with inflation, the cost may be up to N260bn.”
Umahi, who disclosed this in Abuja, stated that though the projects were approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC), they did not take off because funding was not provided for them.
Umahi, who appeared before the Senate and House of Representatives Joint Committee on Works to defend the 2024 budget of the ministry, emphatically said that without the bypasses and access roads, the 2nd Niger Bridge could be said not be functional or serving its purposes.
“Let me note that without these bypasses, the completed 2nd Niger Bridge will be almost inoperative,” the minister told lawmakers.
This comes as the minister said the Federal Government’s total commitments to road contractors as of November 2023, stood at N13.8trillion, while the sum of unpaid certificates was N1.5tn.
Meanwhile, the ministry’s total budget for 2024 is N657.2bn, out of which the provision for capital expenditure is N617.8bn.
Umahi, who informed lawmakers that the focus of the ministry was to complete major ongoing projects for the time being, urged the National Assembly to increase the budget of the ministry to N1.5tn.
He explained that the money would be used to “complete at least 10 selected critical roads and bridges in each of the six geopolitical zones of the country.”
The Minister also called for an urgent review of “all certified debts to contractors and if possible, convert same to promissory notes to contractors so that we can get properly focused in using any fund appropriated to us to pursue the ministry’s set objectives.”
However, while interrogating the proposals in the budget for 2024, lawmakers expressed displeasure, saying that they hadn’t seen a marked departure from the past.
Some noted that the works budget didn’t broadly reflect the ‘renewed hope agenda’ of the present administration, nor gave indications that things would be done differently.
For instance, a member of the committee, Sen Adams Oshiomhole (APC Edo State), described it as a budget of “tokenism.”
He observed that meagre resources were allocated to roads that the contract value was in billions of naira.
“There is no proper funding. What are you expecting a contractor to do with the money, to take it away?
“The Auchi-Benin Road, you allocated N200m to that project to fix it? This is tokenism. How do you intend to do any job there?
He also said the ministry appeared to be more interested in maintaining roads, a function reserved by law for the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA).
A senator from Bayelsa State, Seriake Dickson, suggested that a technical committee should be set up to rework the entire budget in order to make a strong case for an upward review, with the support of the National Assembly.
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