Contract sum jumps from N42b to N116b

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.