The Minister of Works, David Umahi, has strongly defended the federal government’s decision to revoke a major road project contract from Julius Berger and re-award it to a French firm, Infiouest International.
Speaking at a press briefing in Abuja, Umahi noted that Julius Berger’s performance on the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano road project, which connects the South to the North, had fallen short of expectations.
The Minister revealed that portions of the 750-kilometer road completed by the company were already deteriorating. He claimed that Julius Berger lacked the required equipment for the job and was relying on outdated practices.
“Julius Berger is living on its past glory,” Umahi said. He alleged that most of the equipment used by Julius Berger belonged to the newly awarded contractor.
Umahi also addressed accusations that the government had handed the project to an “inactive” company, stating that the new contractor is fully equipped and competent.
He criticized Julius Berger for demanding an additional ₦1.1 trillion to complete the remaining 35% of the project, despite having already been paid ₦391 billion for the 65% completed.
He explained, “They (Julius Berger) just say that they have finished the project 65%, that’s 750 kilometres. I don’t want to tangle with them on that. But if you have finished the project 65 per cent and what was satisfied and paid was N391bn with no debt to you, why are you asking for an additional N1.1tn to finish the remaining 35 per cent? That is what it means.
“You finish 65 per cent and then you are asking for N1.1tn as a review, not additional work, no additional work to this thing. And let me say that we are engineers, fellows of the Society of Engineers. We did not read our engineering from the backyard.
“We went to better schools than some of these people who are claiming that they are engineers. The Abuja-Kano and I want anybody to look at it, is failing. This 65 per cent is failing. Go and look at it and you see that there are patches already on the project. And so nobody should come to teach us engineering. We understand engineering very well. “Julius Berger is living on its past glory; Julius Berger does not have equipment and I will prove it.”
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.”
“I’ll give you an example of Bodo Bonny, the project was reviewed by the past administration, we paid the sum of N199bn 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 N80bn.
“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 by September because we are beginning to see a lot of tactics that will still delay the project. What is very terrible amongst the contractors is that they are delaying the projects and there are increasing prices, so the masses are suffering from delays of projects, accidents on the roads, and again, the federal government is paying for inflation. And that’s why we had a meeting and we said, for you to claim VOP, it has to be very stringent conditions for you to claim VOP”.
