Minister of Works, Engr. David Umahi has expressed confidence in the contractor handling the reawarded Abuja-Kaduna-Kano Road project earlier revoked from Julius Berger, declaring that the firm is competent to deliver, contrary to reports.
Umahi also stated that the company handling the project is ‘Infiouest International Nigeria Limited’, and not InfoQuest Nigeria Limited as reported by a national daily (not Igbere TV).
The minister accused some contractors of deliberately delaying contracts to ask for review of contract sum when prices of materials may have increased.
Umahi stated this on Tuesday while briefing Journalists in Abuja on the project, following reports of its award to an “inactive” company, adding that the portions of the road delivered by Julius Berger is already failing.
He stressed that Julius Berger had on Monday published a misleading information following the termination of the contract due to irreconcilable differences.
The minister explained that the project was terminated after 14 months and over 20 meetings held between Julius Berger and Ministry of Works without resolution on the timeline and fair price on the projects.
He accused the company of inciting Nigerians against the federal government with its rhetorics on road projects.
Julius Berger Plc, the minister added, lacks the necessary equipment to execute jobs awarded to it, adding, “Berger is living in past glory”
“They (Julius Berger) just say that they have finished the project 65%, that’s 750 kilometers. I don’t want to tangle with them on that. But if you have finished the project 65% and what was satisfied and paid was N391 billion with no debt to you, why are you asking for additional N1.1 trillion to finish the remaining 35%? That is what it means.
“You finish 65% and then you are asking for N1.1 trillion 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 own engineering from the backyard.
“We went to better schools than some of these people that are claiming that they are engineers. The Abuja-Kano, and I want anybody to look at it, is failing. “This 65% 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”.
He attributed that dispute between the company and the Federal Government to the refusal to pay additional N1.1 trillion to Julius Berger Plc.
“And then we negotiated for 14 months. And again, they just said they were going to finish the remaining so-called 35% in three years.
“And I said, No. They said they won’t finish in 14 months. We are talking about the entire remaining sections, which was 240 kilometers.
“And so, we now said, okay, since you can’t finish in 14 months, we now disaggregate the project and we took out Section 1 and Section 3 and we gave it out on tax credits as two projects,” Umahi explained.
