Abuja-Kano Road: Julius Berger living on its past glory – Umahi

Minister of Works, David Umahi

The Minister of Works, David Umahi, has said the contractor handling the re-awarded Abuja-Kaduna-Kano road project previously revoked from Julius Berger is competent to deliver, contrary to reports.

The Minister briefing Journalists at the ministry headquarters on Tuesday in Abuja on the project following reports of it being awarded to an “inactive” company, said portions of the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano Road delivered by the company are already failing.

He also accused the construction giant of attempting to blackmail and incite the public against the government. He insisted that some contractors deliberately delay projects to demand price reviews.

On the road, which links the South to the North, he explained that the project was terminated after 14 months and over 20 meetings between Julius Berger and the Ministry of Works without a resolution on the timeline and fair price on the projects.

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.

According to the Minister, JB lacks the necessary equipment to execute jobs awarded to it saying “Berger is living in past glory”

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.”

The minister revealed that most of the equipment being used for the Abuja-Kano Road project by JB belonged to “Infiouest International, the French company that was eventually given the job.

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.”

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 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”.

He also revealed that the ministry discovered that many contractors handling federal projects were in the habit of deploying delay tactics to arm-twist the government into accepting their Variation of Contract Price requests.

To deal with this unwholesome practice, the Minister said his team has developed strict procedures and conditions to meet 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.

In his remarks, the Honourable Minister of State for Works, Bello Muhammad Goronyo, said he was delighted by the proactiveness and resoluteness shown by the ministry in decapitating the intentions of those who made the false publication against the ministry, which, according to him, was intended to distract the ministry and undermine its confidence before Nigerians.

He called on the media operators not to allow themselves to be used by the fifth columnists to publish unfounded reports to undermine the Renewed Hope agenda but should always crosscheck their information with the appropriate authority to let out only the truth to the public.

In his vote of thanks, the Permanent Secretary described the press briefing as thoughtful and timely. He harped on the importance of development journalism and urged the media to always uphold the truth in their professional duties of information dissemination rather than allow themselves to be used as a tool in the hands of enemies of our national development.