Senators summon firms

Contract sum jumps from N42b to N116b

Senators summon firms

The Senate Ad-hoc Committee on Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) decried yesterday a situation where the Abuja-Lokoja highway contract awarded for N42billion in 2006 has risen to N116billion (about 170 per cent).

The committee summoned the management of four firms handling the project to appear before it.

Committee Chairman Abdul Ningi gave the directive when Minister of Works Mike Onolememen and the Managing Director of the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA), Mr. Gabriel Amuchi, appeared before the committee in Abuja.

The four contractors are Reynolds Construction Company (RCC) Nigeria Limited, Dantata and Sawoe Nigeria Limited, Bulletin Construction Company and Gitto Construction Company Nigeria Limited.

Ningi said the firms were being invited to explain the “scandalous review of the Abuja-Lokoja road contract sum with over 170 per cent from 2006 to date.

He frowned at a situation where the Abuja, Abaji, Lokoja road, which was awarded at the sum of N42 billion in 2006, has been reviewed upwards to over N116 billion by the ministry to accommodate some technical deficiencies.

He further expressed concern over the increasing cost of road construction in Nigeria, saying that what obtains in Nigeria is far beyond other countries in Africa.

Minister of Works Mike Onolememen who appeared before the committee after three summons apologised to the legislators.

The Minister said the SURE-P Board had so far spent over N178 billion on four major roads and two bridges across the country between 2012 and 2013.

He listed the four roads and two bridges to include the Abuja-Abaji-Lokoja road, Kano road, Maiduguri road, Enugu-Onitsha road, the Benin-Shagamu-Ore road, the Second Niger Bridge and the Oweto bridge, linking Benue and Nasarawa states.

According to the Minister, N85.5 billion was spent on the roads in 2012 from SURE-P, while the ministry paid N61billion. Also in 2013, N93.4 billion was expended on the roads, out of which over N67 billion was paid from SURE-P.

On the over 170 per cent increase on the Abuja-Lokoja road, the Minister said the original contract was awarded without the requisite designs.

He added that the consultant for the road project had been blacklisted by the ministry for not taking appropriate technicalities into consideration before approving the road design.

Onolememen also said the construction work on these four major roads and two bridges have reached advanced stages, expressing hope that the Abuja, Abaji, Lokoja road would be inaugurated by the end of next year.

He said that if all monies allocated to the ministry under the SURE-P is released, the Abuja-Lokoja highway project would be completed next year because most of the companies handling the job have reached 70 per cent completion.

The lawmakers also grilled Amuchi over the allocation of N1.3 billion as operational and labour cost out of the N4 billion it got from the SURE-P programme for road maintenance and rehabilitation last year.

Ningi lamented that facts before the panel suggest that FERMA has turned the SURE-P money into “Father Christmas” by spending N1 billion on labour cost in the name of paying 6000 youths it was said to have engaged as direct labourers.

Amuchi had informed the panel that the agency pays each of the engaged youth the sum of N18,000 monthly.

However, Ningi said it was not necessary since the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity had already engaged the youths under the same SURE-P arrangement.

Ningi also directed the FERMA boss to submit details of all the beneficiaries of the programme to the committee within one week.

The lawmakers also queried what they called duplication of projects by FERMA in 2012 and 2013 budgets as contained in their submissions.

Although, Amuchi explained that FERMA purchased equipment with the money but the lawmakers said having procured similar tools in 2012, there was no need for the agency to repeat the same items in its 2013 budget.