The Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, at the weekend hinted that the Federal Government was considering the termination of some abandoned projects worth about N6 trillion inherited from past administrations that had no feasible source of funding.
The Minister made this disclosure during his chat with State House correspondents after a meeting with President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
Umahi explained that the President had approved the use of concrete instead of asphalt for the construction and rehabilitation of federal roads nationwide as well as the use of tolls in some roads in the country.
According to him, the option for concrete in road construction is informed by the fact that it is more durable and cost-effective than any other alternatives
He said: “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 the 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 50 years period free of maintenance, we’ll demand for performance bond.
“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”, the minister added.
He, therefore, urged all contractors working on road and other construction projects in the country to ensure that they adhere to global best practices in their operations
On the state of some major ongoing projects in the country, the minister disclosed that following his meeting with contractors handling projects in the North-East zone of the country, observed that the ministry currently had up to N14 trillion worth of ongoing projects against about 18,000 kilometres of roads, adding that henceforth, contractors are not expected to stay on site for more than 4 years.
Umahi expressed his dissatisfaction at situations where some contracts had been ongoing for 20 years, and identified some of the reasons for road projects’ failure in the country as including poor workmanship from contractors, importation of adulterated bitumen for the projects and the laying of less than appropriate thickness of asphalt.
He expatiated: “I had recently met with contractors handling road ‘dualisation’ projects and my position on the issue is to take one lane and complete it because of paucity of funds.
“But with the availability of money, they could start the second lane. We can manage with one lane instead of not having anything at all.
“We don’t witness this kind of construction patterns in developed countries. You came from developed countries. So, we are going to respect engineering best practices in Nigeria. We will build roads that are going to last”, Umahi assured.
