…says FG won’t succumb to blackmail
The Minister of Works, Engr. David Umahi has accused construction giant Julius Berger (Nig.) Plc, of trying to blackmail the Federal Government and incite the public against it.
Umahi leveled the allegation against the company at a press conference in Abuja, on Tuesday.
He was responding to what he described as the company’s attempt to misinform the public on the reason behind the revocation of its contract on Sections I and all of the Abuja-Kano Expressway.
He accused the firm of refusing to come clean about the real reason talks broke down and the federal government was left with no option but to terminate and re-award the contract.
Umahi said, “Julius Berger is living on its past glory, Julius Berger does not have equipment and I will prove it.”
The minister revealed that most of the equipment being used for the Abuja-Kano Road project by JB belonged to “Infiouest International” the company which was eventually given the job.
The minister said, “ On the Abuja -Kano Road, Berger said they’ve completed the job 65 per cent about 250 kilometres. I don’t want to tango with them on that.
“But if you have done 65 per cent and what was valued and paid was N391bn why are you asking for an additional N1.1trillion? to finish the remaining 35 per cent? that is what it means.
“You finished 65 per cent and you are asking for N1.1tr as a review, not additional work and let me say, we are engineers. We went to better schools than where some of these people claim to have attended.
“The Abuja-Kano is failing; the 65 per cent, go and look at it and see that already there are patches and so nobody should come and teach us engineering. We refused to pay an additional N1.1trillion and that is where the problem started.”
Umahi further said, “We negotiated for 14 months and Berger said they were going to finish the so-called 35 per cent in three years and they are saying they said 14 months no.
“That is why we disaggregated the project and took our sections 1 and 3 and gave it out on tax credit as a new project. And Mr President graciously said we should extend the road to Aminu Kano Airport.”
The minister further explained that the Ministry held over 20 meetings with the company over what it considered its unreasonable demand for an upward review of the contract sum but the company stuck to its guns and the Ministry took the only option left to it.
Umahi also cited another example with the Bodo-Bony Road which the same firm is handling.
He said, “I’ll give you an example of Bodo Bonny, the project was reviewed by the past administration, we paid the sum of N199 billion and we insisted that the project should not be reviewed again but in September, Berger reneged on that agreement and insisted that the project be reviewed and we should add another N80 billion.
“We went through all the negotiations we had the Attorney General and the National Security Adviser, we met three times on Bodo Bonny.
“The worrisome part is not that there is disagreement but they are inciting the public against the Federal Government. We gave in and agreed that Berger should complete that job by September this year.
“It is left to be seen if Berger will complete it because we are beginning to see a lot of tactics that is still going to delay the project.”
He also revealed that the ministry discovered that a lot of contractors handling federal projects were in the habit of deploying delay tactics in a bid to arm-twist the government into accepting their Variation of Contract Price (VOP) requests.
To deal with this unwholesome practice, the Minister said his team has developed strict procedures and conditions which must be met before such requests are approved.
Umahi declared that he enjoys President Bola Tinubu’s buy-in on his insistence that Nigerian taxpayers must get value for money spent on any project.
He also declared that this government would not succumb to blackmail and would not compromise on giving Nigerians the best in fulfilling the administration’s Renewed Hope Agenda ,especially in the area of road infrastructure.
