..Says Reps Committee Chair On FERMA Ignorant on Achievements
Khadijat Yusuf
Abuja
The Minister of works Engr. David Umahi has applauded the federal government for its effort towards road construction in Nigeria. The Minister also said the current administration has paid N726bn for road projects done and executed 80 percent of palliative roads approved by the federal government.
Engr Umahi made this disclosure while addressing press on the claims by house of representatives committee on Federal Road Maintenance Agency FERMA Hon. Aderemi Oseni that the ministry has achieved nothing to fix deplorable roads.
The Minister informed that the administration inherited a total of 2604 projects. He added that contrary to the claim,his ministry has also certified 170Bn out of 300Bn approved for palliative works.
"The total Certified project in 2024 has come to over ₦600 billion and when you add the tax credit of NNPCL job, we have executed 726 billion projects all over.
"And so if he wants to oversight the project, he should come and get the details of the ongoing projects.
And he can move to the projects one by one. Just like we are going to be doing with the two committees of the National Assembly from the middle of November. We're going to be showing that this project is what we have done.
"726 billion unless if he says the contractors collected it and are not working. And then in 2023, out of the N300 billion, we have certified work done 170 billion. And so it is remaining just 130 billion because we insist that these are emergency projects. You must get to a certain percentage before we certify you," he said.
The Minister who was visible unpleased by the pronouncement by the committee chair on FERMA, Hon. Oseni demanded an unreserved apology from the committee chairman and called on the leadership of the National Assembly to carry out preliminary investigations before sending out invitations to avoid disruption of assignments at hand.
Engr Umahi said his ministry will no longer honour invitations again as they have become too many and frivolous.
"when he verifies, I request that he tenders an all-reserved apology because all he did was to represent the contractors and incite the public against the government that brought him in. And it's very unfortunate because when you darken counsel without knowledge, you are inciting the public. So we're going to publish the projects," he said.
Speaking on variation of price, Umahi said the house committee chairman was sounding more like a contractor than a representative of the people.
He expressed worry that some contractors who are not comfortable with the ban on variation of price and foreign exchange disparity are going around inducing people against the government.
The Minister while calling on the leadership of the National Assembly to declare state of emergency on road constructions in 2025 budget in order to ease the pains of Nigerians, said the ministry under his watch has terminated about 10 contracts, some awarded 18 to 18 years ago.
"He sounded as if he was representing the contractors and what were the issues in Ministry of Works? The issue of variation of price, (VOP) and the issue of foreign exchange differential . Some contractors were claiming them. Essentially, two of them are the same. But that less priority that he talked about was that we stopped them. And we have no regrets stopping them. There's no reason why we should award projects in the month of October and in the month of November.You are asking us to pay variation of price. So we refuse to do that," he said
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