The President Bola Ahmed Tinubu Renewed Hope administration, has achieved over 85 per cent completion of the 2064 projects it inherited from the past administration.
Minister of Works, David Umahi, made the disclosure during a press conference in his office in Abuja on Monday, while replying to the Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA), representing lbarapa/Ido Federal Constituency, Oyo State, Remi Oseni, who accused the Minister of underperformance and misplaced priorities in his choice of projects, during an interactive session on Thursday.
Describing his allegations as blind and baseless, the Minister express the belief that the law maker possibly working with some contractors who are not happy with the reform in the sector courtesy of the ministry, thought that could work for his (the Minister’s) removal from office, and was angered because it didn’t happen that way.
Umahi however said the respect for the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and of course the Senate President, and the National Assembly Institution that he belong to, will refrain him from joining issues with the Rep committee chair.
“He said I have failed. And if a blind man is to assess you, your guess is as good as mine. Because if he has no knowledge of anything, then his knowledge becomes his gut. So I will not join issues with him. But no one in life ever said that I failed.
“He said I was involved in less priority issues in Ministry of Works. Yes, he’s right. Because he sounded as if he was representing the contractors. And what were the issues in Ministry of Works? The issue of variation of price, VOP,” he said.
The Minister explained that the VOP was the very terrible programme that was eroding the little resources the ministry put in the budget to do projects.
“Before we came on board, there were these issues of variation of price. There were these issues of CPI. That is a foreign exchange differential.Some contractors were claiming them.
“Essentially, the two of them are the same. But that less priority that he talked about was that we stopped them. And we have no regrets stopping them. There’s no reason why we should award projects in the month of October and in the month of November,” the Minister explained.
He reaffirmed that the President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led administration inherited 2,604 projects in total, and that as of May 29, 2023, total cost was $13 trillion as debt to contractors stood at $1.6 trillion.
He said, “Looking at the variation by reason of subsidy remover, by the reason of the floating of the dollar, you will see that you will get over $19 trillion as total for ongoing projects.”
Umahi hailed the President for manifesting all the projects in 2024 budget with the hope of looking for resources, including loans, to do these projects, stressing the President pays so much attention to the suffering of Nigerians vis-a-vis the road situation.
“That’s why in 2023 supplementary, he approved $300 billion to take care of a number of palliatives,” he said.
The Minister told the Press that by next week, the Ministry is going to publish what success it has achieved in those $300 billion projects, adding that there is no where in the world no matter the resources available that such 2604 projects were completed in one year.
“We used it to procure over 330 roads, palliatives, and bridge repairs, which were properly procured and properly executed.
“Today, we have achieved over 85% completion. And so when we publish it, I want him to go there, if he can leave his oversight in FERMA, he can go and check these projects. I’m going to put out the phone numbers of the contractors and then put the status and he can verify,” Umahi noted.
He expressed the determination of the ministry to continue to work towards providing good roads for the economic prosperity of all Nigerians in line with the vision of the President, adding that so far at total of N726 billion projects had been completed across board.
