ASHENEWS reports that the Niger State Governor, Mohammed Bago has urged the federal government to revoke the contract awarded to Salini Nigeria Limited for the reconstruction of the Minna-Suleja Road over lack of incompetence.
The governor pleaded with the federal government during a town hall meeting on the construction of the 125 km; 3 lanes single carriage, the Niger State component of the 1068 km Sokoto-Badagry Superhighway.
The meeting was convened at the Idris Legbo Kutigi International Conference Centre in Minna on Wednesday.
“We cannot continue to take issues with laxity. We are asking the minister to revoke the job given to Salini. They are a fake company and they don’t have capacity.
“The kind of work they are doing is responsible for the huge collapse of this road. If they did good roads, they should give us 30 or 40 years guarantee.”
The governor instead advised the federal government to award the contracts to competent construction companies to ensure the speedy completion of the project.
The governor who lauded the federal government for its efforts at improving infrastructure in the country noted that the Niger state government, on its part has put in so many of its resources to attend to the federal government roads.
He therefore appealed for more interventions and a refund of the resources expended by the state government on Federal Roads in the State.
In his remarks, the Chairman of, the House Committee on Works, Akin Alabi observed that there is a need for the federal Ministry of Works to address the structural problems in the ministry.
Alabi, who lamented discrepancies in project reports, pointed out that official records inaccurately reflect the Minna-Suleja Road as being 86% complete.
“On paper, we discovered that the road leading to Niger state we were told that it has almost been completed which shows a structural problem at the ministry. For you to have the document that says 86 per cent of the road has been done, that means there is a real problem going on.
“I think the minister should redesign how supervision of projects is done. You can choose independent consultants to look at these eyes. The consultant should be able to give us an accurate report but as it stands, it means we must declare a state of emergency on the state of federal roads in Niger State. The state is large and the road networks must not be politicised.
“I want to guarantee you that in the next appropriation, we at the National Assembly will do our best to appropriate as much money to these roads,” he pledged.
In his response, the Minister of Works, David Umahi disclosed that the federal government intends to complete all 2,604 projects it inherited from previous administrations.
“These projects totalled N13 trillion as at that time. Today, when we reviewed those projects, they are a total of over N19 trillion.”
Umahi disclosed that the president has directed the continuation of such projects within the country’s six zones.
He therefore urged the National Assembly to assist the government in achieving its goals by releasing the needed resources to the ministry.
“We are begging the National Assembly for more funds. We are working on repairs of bridges such as Third Mainland, Murtala Mohammed Bridge, etc.
“If any of these bridges go down, none of them will take anything less than N5 trillion to reconstruction and so the National Assembly is invited to note this and do something seriously in the 2025 budget.”
