- Safiu Kehinde
The Federal Government has accused Julius Berger of political sentiment as it revoked a section of the Abuja-Kaduna highway contract being handled by construction company over irregularities.
The Minister of Works, David Umahi, made this known during the inauguration of the rehabilitation of the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano road on Thursday in Abuja.
Umahi disclosed that the road contract was awarded to Julius Berger in 2018 under former President Muhammadu Buhari for N391 billion.
While confirming the completion of Kaduna-Zaria section and the almost completed Zaria-Kano section, the Minister, however, raised eyebrow over the Abuja-Kaduna section which has witnessed slow completion rate in six years.
“We inherited about 240km in the section I and we extended another two kilometres towards Kogi state to repair the road because it is an eye saw.
“So we have additional 7.5km added to the original 750km, the cost that we gave to Julius Berger for this section is N349 billion or N2.03 billion per kilometer and it is on flexible pavement.
“The section one is 38km or 76 single carriageways when you multiply it by two.” the Minister said.
According to Umahi, the cost is N145 billion or N1.9 billion per kilometer adding that the section one and three are being done under tax credit.
He said that the road project needed to be divided into three sections because Julius Berger was demanding a total of 1.5 trillion for the entire road project to be completed in four years.
“However, we do not want that, president Bola Tinubu does not want that, so we predicted the option of balkanising the road into three, which we have done, and he approved it.
“When we did that by writing, Julius Berger accepted it with the rates but we did not know that they would play games by continuing to play delayed tactics.
“At that time, their own section was 710 billion, both what was done and the new thing to be done,so they started in the first section.”
He said that the Ministry of Finance promised to be paying N20 billion every month to get the job done, but Julius Berger asked for an increase which the ministry obliged from N710 to N740 billion.
Umahi said Julius Berger again wrote to the ministry last week asking for a raise from N740 to N903 billion to complete the project, a condition not favourable to the government.
“We decided to go for about four billion naira per kilometer for an existing road we are rehabilitating on asphalt, so our position is that we are not increasing this contract for Julius Berger beyond N740 billion.
“This game must be over. I have invited them for a meeting tomorrow. We cannot do what they want. They have been pushing us around. In Bodo Boni, they got what they wanted.
“They have put the project into politics. So they are using it to demarcate our administration and we think enough should be enough,”he said
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Land Transport , Adamu Aliero, commended the President for taking the bold initiative in approving the revocation of the contract and re-awarding it to competent contractors.
Aliero said that the Abuja-Kaduna road has been a thorny issue as far back as 2021, 2022, 2023.
“The governors, the senators, front-line politicians have been complaining on the slow pace of this road. They have been talking about how many people have died because of the deplorable condition of the road.
“Let me say that there is no road in Northern Nigeria that is as important as this road but Julius Berger kept bringing all kinds of excuses.
“This road is a vital link. It connects the northeast, northwest, southeast, south-south, and southwest, the road is very important, it is a national asset.”
Aliero therefore, urged the contractors that have won the award to please speed up and complete the road to ease movement of goods and services to every part of Nigeria.
He also appealed to Julius Berger to restore the confidence Nigerians have in them by completing other section of the road contract they are handling that has not been revoked.