In a candid statement, contractors handling federal road projects were put on notice by the Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, who expressed concerns about the longevity of ongoing road projects across the nation.
During a meeting in Abuja on Tuesday, the Minister conveyed his skepticism, asserting that none of these projects could stand the test of time for a full seven years.
He openly accused contractors of compromising the quality of road construction by allegedly cutting corners with subpar materials, thereby potentially shortening the lifespan of these vital infrastructures.
He said: “There is no project being constructed right now in Nigeria that is going to last for seven years. The question is: are we going to be maintaining or reconstructing our roads after every 10 years? That is what we’ve been doing.
“I traveled from Abuja to Benin City through Lokoja, all the stretches of the road are on contract, ongoing. This is through the policy of the last administration, but how many of the roads are motorable? I travelled through the roads myself and I shed tears for the kind of pains our people are going through.
“I spent 14 hours on the road having started my journey from 10am and got to Benin City at 2pm the next day and I was very happy I experienced the pains. President Tinubu said I must travel through all the projects so that I’ll brief him on my experience and tell him the truth.”
He described the claims that cement price would hit N9,000 per bag if the government does concrete roads as false and a big campaign of blackmail against him by the cabals in the construction industry.
“I travelled to the South West, I’m not totally unhappy with the project there and supervision as I gave them 80 marks. I’m happy that the directors are doing their work. I went to the part of the North Central, I’m very dissatisfied with the quality work and supervision. I went to Kaduna and I disagree with the design of the Abuja-Kaduna- Zaria-Kano Road.”
He said the blood of road accident victims was on the ministry workers who failed to supervise contracts as expected.
“Unless Mr President does something about it, his lofty intention to help this country may not totally be achieved. Documents will be sent to the Bureau of Public Procurement for no objection certificate and it’ll stay for six months. How will the contractors do the additional job you directed them to do without a backup authorisation.”
