- Safiu Kehinde
The Ad hoc Committee of the House of Representatives has expressed their dissatisfaction over Abuja-Kaduna-Kano road project delay as they pledged to ensure its speedy completion.
The Chairman of the committee, Rep. Aminu Jaji ( APC-) made the pledge in a statement issued on Sunday after an oversight visit to the Abuja-Kaduna axis of the project.
He frowned over the slow pace of work by the contractor, pledging that the committee would ensure work begins on the road to make it ready for use as soon as possible.
Aminu disclosed that the project was awarded almost six years ago, stressing that the way and manner the contractors are doing the work was too slow.
Jaji said that the committee would intervene and ensure all pending issues are resolved so that work can begin immediately.
According to him, this is why the house, under the leadership the Speaker, Rep. Tajudeen Abbas, deemed it very necessary to constitute this committee.
“Whatever the case might be, whether it is funding, or it is the contractor, or it is technical, whatever the problem is, we started our journey today and by God’s grace, we will do the needful and we will ensure that whatever problem it is, it will be sorted out.
“We will do our best to ensure that all things have been done in accordance with the contractual agreement.
“Since there is an intervention from the National Assembly, all stakeholders should hold their positions for the necessary thing must be done in accordance with the contractual agreement.
“For us, we do not know that condition are yet, until we get it formally and we have requested all necessary information from the Federal Ministry of Works.
“We are going to write to all relevant agencies, including those that are responsible for this palliative exercise that is taking place on this Abuja-Kaduna road.
“We will do our best to ensure that whatever needs to be addressed will be addressed in due course,” he said.
The chairman, however , appealed to the road users to be patient as efforts would be in top gear to ensure the road is in good condition for use as soon as possible.
He assured that the National Assembly is ever ready to ensure that the road is completed in due course.
According to reports, the Federal Government had on 17th of October threatened to revoke a section of the Abuja-Kaduna highway contract being handled by Julius Berger.
The Minister of Works, David Umahi, said this during a visit to inaugurate the rehabilitation of the highway at the Zuba area of the Federal Capital Territory.
The contract was awarded to Julius Berger in 2018 when former President Muhammadu Buhari was in power.
While the Kaduna-Zaria section has been completed and the Zaria-Kano section is almost done, the Abuja-Kaduna section has recorded 27 per cent progress in 6 years.
Again, on Oct. 24, the federal government issued a final seven-day ultimatum to Julius Berger to accept its proposal of N740.79billion to complete the rehabilitation of the 82km section II of the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano road or risk contract termination.
Umahi, said the project, which has lingered for too long on the negotiations table, must be resolved within the next seven days.
He gave the new ultimatum when he was paid a courtesy visit by the new Managing Director of Julius Berger Plc, Dr Pier Lubasch, who was accompanied by the outgoing Managing Director, Dr Lars Richter, at the works ministry headquarters, in Abuja.