The Governor of Oyo State, Engineer Seyi Makinde, has rescinded a stop-work order he earlier issued on the Ibadan Circular Road project.
The Governor, in issuing the fresh order, said that the decision came after a review meeting held between officials of the state government and the ENL Consortium.
He has, therefore, given a May 2020 deadline to the company to deliver the project in line with the original three-year contract.
A statement by the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Makinde, Mr. Taiwo Adisa, quoted the Governor as saying that despite the fact that the first instinct would have been to revoke the contract based on the inexplicable slow pace of work and a number of identifiable irregularities, he would want the company to deliver the contract in line with the original contract they signed in 2017.
The statement cautioned political interests who are jumping into the fray of arguments on the 32-kilometre road contract to desist from playing to the gallery just in an attempt to get counted as ‘opposition voices.’
“It is preposterous for any political party or group to jump at such a critical issue without being abreast of the facts of the matter and by merely trying to play to the card of unbridled opposition.
“Governor Seyi Makinde has, therefore, given the ENL Consortium, the go-ahead to complete the project by May 2020 as specified in the contractual agreement it signed with Oyo State Government,” the statement read.
The decision to rescind the stop work order came on the heels of a follow-up meeting at the State Secretariat, Agodi, Ibadan shortly after the Governor conducted an inspection tour of the project.
The statement further read: “The Ibadan Circular Project is a 32-kilometre road contract awarded by the immediate past administration under a Build Operate and Transfer concessionaire arrangement at the cost of N67 billion.
“However, discoveries by the incumbent administration in Oyo State have confirmed that besides the extremely slow pace of work on the contract which meant that only 5.5 percent of work had been done in two and a half years, sections of the cost quoted may be apparently unjustifiable.
“Governor Makinde considers the project to be very strategic to the economic expansion agenda of his Government, and therefore ordered that since the consortium now claims to now have the required funding, they could as well deliver the project by May 2020, in line with the contract they signed in 2017. (The Nation)
