ENUGU, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA)- The Federal Government of Nigeria has increased the contract sum for the Bodo-Bonny link road project in Rivers State from N199 billion to N280 billion.
Minister of Works, David Umahi, announced this during an inspection tour of road projects in Rivers State, adding that the project is expected to be completed by December 15, 2024.
“The job must be completed within the limited resources available to the Federal Government.
“However, we have caved into the demands of Berger and I’m also happy that Berger caved in, in the other locations where we have differences like the Abuja/Kano road, second Niger Bridge, Lagos/Ibadan, Odukpani in Cross River, that’s give and take.
“So we are not unhappy about agreeing to the cost that Berger posed to us so we have accepted the cost, so the project has been reviewed to a final figure of N280 billion and that is the completion cost”, he said.
On the Akpajo/Eleme section of the East-West Road, Umahi criticized the abandonment of the project by the contractor, Reynolds Construction Company.
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He said, “We are on the East-West Road, presently the contractor is not working and we are very sad with the manner and behaviour of this contractor, RCC.
“We have been having a running battle starting from quality of work to delays and all manner of tricks including engaging the communities for politics so that you perpetually keep them.
“The entire road is in a terrible mess. And the contractor must be warned because when the restiveness of the people of this area will start, he (contractor) will not be able to carry it.”
Umahi revealed that the ministry is working on all sessions of the East/West road to ensure completion, adding that flood-prone areas will be constructed on concrete pavements.
“We are raising the height of the road by one metre so that it will be totally out of the flood plain.
“The only way we can achieve success in our road projects is proper monitoring and that is the Hallmark of what we will embark on at the Ministry of Works. When you don’t push contractors they may tend to slack except very few of them.“
“So we are harmonising contracts so that we will continue with only contracts that we are sure that we have enough money to execute and we are going to prioritise projects. We inherited over 2,600 projects and we don’t have all the money to continue all of them.”
Umahi added, “So we are going to prioritise them based on fairness and equity across the zones and of course across the states, even as he commended President Tinubu, the contractors and staff for their commitment to ensuring completion of the various ongoing road projects across the zones.”