… Mothercat, Dantata & Sawoe Construction, RCC affected
In a bid to reduce the number of abandoned road projects in the country, the Federal Government of Nigeria has wielded the big stick with the termination of road contracts due to the lackluster attitude of the road contractors, Works Minister Dave Umahi made the disclosure yesterday, warning that the government will not hesitate in terminating all projects that are funded but are non-performing.
The contracts in question include the ones with contract numbers 6136, 6137 and 6138 being executed by Mothercat Ltd, Dantata & Sawoe Construction Ltd, and RCC Ltd, respectively. The road projects are the dualization of the Obajana-Benin Road, section II (Okene-Auchi) in Kogi/Edo State; section III (Auchi-Ehor) in Edo State; and section IV (Ehor-Benin) also in Edo State.
“Failure, neglect, and/or refusal to fulfill their contractual obligations as required by the Standard Conditions of Contract. This has led to delays and the expiration of the contracts due to the passage of time,” Engr Umahi said, adding that “the termination of the said contracts became necessary in view of the inordinate delay of the affected companies in job performance”.
Roads in Auchi, Edo central are so strategic as they connect the south-south with north-central, serving the huge agricultural communities in those two regions.
David Umahi said the affected road projects were awarded on December 3, 2012 but were abandoned by the contractors and no genuine commitment or good faith was shown towards executing the projects thereby exposing road users to untold hardship due to the deplorable condition of roads in that axis of the country.
The minister further warned that the Ministry of Works, under his leadership, would not tolerate acts of negligence or sabotage by contractors, emphasising that the government would not hesitate to terminate any funded but non-performing projects, urging the engineers in charge to take necessary steps to enter upon both the site and the works and take the same over from the affected companies.
It should be recalled that the worst state of some federal roads in Edo State, especially the Benin-Auchi road, prompted the state government to partner FG in March this year to concession the roads to the state government following protests by Edo citizens whose livelihoods are affected by the deplorable state of the roads.
“You have contracts for almost 20 years but we have not been able to make progress, please hand over that road to us, let us concession it to people that have the money as we have done with the Benin-Asaba Road. We believe working with the private sector we can be able to raise the money to dualise the road. Before the end of this year we would push for the concession of the road and would try to achieve this before leaving office,” Godwin Obaseki, Edo State governor, said in March this year.
In September 2023, the Nigerian government announced it was contemplating cancelling N6 trillion worth of road projects attributing the decision to absence of clear sources of funding for those projects. It was also the time the government declared some roads would be executed with concrete materials.
“We are introducing concrete road technology and some of you are not happy about it. Some are saying it is too expensive, but we have to try both and see which is better. In any case, any contractor with an ongoing project that is not willing to cooperate with us for a redesign with concrete road technology, with a 50-year period free of maintenance, we’ll demand for a performance bond,” Business Insider quoted Umahi, works minister, to have said.
“A situation and time when roads are built on asphalt and within two to three years the project is back to square one is gone,” Umahi added.
