Photo Engineer David Umahi alongside other officials during the inspection of the Calabar - Itu Road in Oku Iboku, Akwa Ibom State.
FG goes tough with road contractors, terminates contracts with Mothercat, Dantata & Sawoe, RCC
Ani Bassey
Photo
Engineer David Umahi alongside other officials during the inspection of the Calabar – Itu Road in Oku Iboku, Akwa Ibom State.
The Federal government through the Federal Ministry of Works has terminated the road contracts of Mothercat, Dantata & Sawoe and RCC.
The termination covers contracts reflected in contract numbers 6136, 6137 and 6138 with Mothercat Ltd, Dantata & Sawoe Construction Ltd and RCC Ltd respectively.
The projects affected by this termination are the dualization of Obajana – Benin road, section II (Okene – Auchi) in Kogi/Edo State; the dualization of Obajana – Benin road, section III (Auchi – Ehor) in Edo State and the dualization of Obajana – Benin road section IV (Ehor – Benin) in Edo State.
This is made known in a statement made available by Hon. Barr. Orji Uchenna Orji Special Adviser (Media) to the Honourable Minister of Works.
Hon. Barr. Orji explained that the termination of the said contracts “became necessary in view of the inordinate delay of the affected companies in job performance and their failure, neglect and or refusal to fulfill their contractual obligations as required by the Standard Conditions of Contract and this has affected the timely completion of the projects and thus resulted in the expiration of the contracts by effluxion of time.
“The projects which were awarded on 3rd December 2012 were advertently abandoned by the contractors and no genuine commitment or good faith was shown towards executing the projects after accepting the considerations offered by the Federal Government and thereby exposing the road users to untold hardship due to the deplorable condition of the projects.
“The Honourable Minister has therefore directed the engineers in charge to take necessary steps to enter upon both the site and the works and take the same over from the affected companies.
“He further directs the engineers concerned to, upon doing the needful, arrange with the affected companies for a joint measurement of work so far done by the said companies preparatory to taking over the sites from the said companies, and this directive is without prejudice to the exercise of other rights of Federal Government under the contract.
“He warns that the Federal Ministry of Works under his watch will not condone acts of unseriousness and sabotage by contractors whose plan is to become a clog in the wheel of progress of the Renewed Hope administration which is determined to change the ugly narrative of Nigeria’s road infrastructure.
“He further warns that going forward, the government will not hesitate in terminating all projects that are funded but are non-performing”, he said.
The Works Minister had over the weekend in Calabar threatened to sack non performing contractors handling federal government road projects.
He accused some of them of unduly delaying road projects and then relying on Variation of Price to seek review of contracts a practice he said is fraudulent.
