The Federal Government has promised to address all obstacles hindering delivery of of road projects in the country to ensure actualisation of the road projects to the benefit of Nigerians before the end of 2024.
Work Minister, David Umahi who made the promised during his meeting with Directors in Abuja on Thursday urged them to be on their toe in working to ensure that vision for sustainable road infrastructure development in the country by the President Bola Tinubu’s administration in line with Renewed Hope Agenda is achieved.
The Minister proposed a review of agreements, cost, geo-technical evaluation among others of some of the existing contracts with a view to addressing the bottlenecks that have delayed or hindered execution of road projects across the country in the past.
Speaking further on the road projects, he said Mr President approved huge large some of money for the Ministry in the appopriation in order for the Ministry to deliver its mandate”
“We’ve some supervisions work to be done on roads , the Directors and the Consultants must work together and any erring contractors that dont keep to contract agreement would be penalised ”
According to him, “I won’t be able to go back to Mr President and Federal Executive Council for re-scope of work and contract if the contractors deliberately delay the progress of road constructon “
Reiterating his commitment to the welfare of the workers, Umahi said what matters most is how much of roads has been constructed or made motorable to ease the sufferings of Nigerians when it comes to mobility, adding that irrespective of position or social status, any worker who is found wanting in terms of performance risks being kept aside or outright replacement.
The Minister told directors that there is a difference between his ministry and other ministries, departments, and agencies, MDAs, is due to the fact that the Works Ministry is measured in terms of the how much and the impact of the roads constructed.
“The difference between us and other MDAs is that ours is what you can achieve in terms of roads, not speech. And our office is not the normal civil service office where you spend eight hours and close, at times you need to even work a weekends,” he assured that anyone who works would be appreciated.
Umahi appealed to directors to be God fearing in handling the assignment of the ministry, while disclosed that the President had made available the needed funds for execution of road contracts, but that there was need for review of the contract terms due to previous experiences.
The Minister tasked the directors and contractors on integrity, identifing bad construction method, poor supervision, substandard materials as the foremost challenges of road contract execution in Nigeria. “18 retired security personnel are to be engaged in supervision and monitoring for each of the six geopolitical zones of the country”, he said.
The representative of Permanent Secretary at the Meeting , Engr O.O. Awosanya earlier thanked the Honourable Minister for creating enabling environment for staff to function well through provision of incentives and welfare , said ” Since I have been in the ministry this is the first time i will be seeing a minister so dedicated to staff welfare provisions”
Director Highways South West Engr Adedamola Kuti while responding to the ministers remarks assured the Minister that both the staff and the consultants would work in synergy to deliver on the mandate of the Ministry
