The Federal Government has terminated the 43-kilometre Port-Harcourt-Aba-bound road contract being handled by China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation over poor performance.
The government said the decision stemmed from the failure of the contractor to improve its works despite repeated warnings, which has led to the collapse of the project despite the huge funds expended on it.
The Minister of Works, David Umahi, disclosed this while speaking to newsmen shortly after an inspection of the project on Sunday.
Umahi said the government will scout for a competent indigenous contractor to take over the job and see to its completion.
“Today is the 19th of October, the Controller reported to me that the Aba-bound bound of Port Harcourt-Aba Road being constructed by CCECC is at the verge of total collapse.
“This job 43 kilometres from Port Harcourt to Aba, is an inherited project and since we came on board, we have been doing everything, putting funds to see how we can finish one carriage way.
“And so we started working with CCECC on this one carriage way using concrete to do the inner shoulder and the outer shoulder so as to ensure the road lasts while they are using the Asphalt to do the 7.3 carriage way.
“And their method of construction has been a very serious source of concern, where you will do binder for over a stretch of 30 kilometres and you are not putting wearing. We have issued warnings to CCECC more than 20 times, and we have told them the implications of putting binder without doing a shoulder and without wearing.”
He continued, “And I want the press to capture the failure of a road that the federal government has used taxpayers’ money to pay for. And CCECC has consistently refused to obey all the instructions. I have been here more than seven times. If you get to Port Harcourt end, which they did about two years or thereabouts, the entire road has almost totally failed.”
While noting that several letters written to the contractor to maintain the road have fallen on deaf ears, the Minister said, “So I have to take responsibility and make a decision. Number one, the Port Harcourt-bound is discontinued; no longer going to be done by CCECC.
“I will direct the Ministry of Works to scout for very qualified indigenous contractors to handle the Port Harcourt-bound. They should be the contractor that should start work immediately, and then why should we source funds for them?”
Umahi said, despite the contract termination, the company must ensure to mill out the binder on the project because it has been paid for and threatened to shut all their projects in the country if they fail to do so.
“The site handled by CCECC should issue them a 14-day notice of termination of this job, and I want this directive to go very wide. After 14 days they fail to mill out the binder and replace it properly, they have to initiative it, they have to commit to doing that even if they are going to do it during the dry season they have to maintain the ones they have done and they put in writing that they are going to mill out the binder at their own cost and then be able to put a new binder which we have paid for.
“If they don’t do that, I will shut down all their projects in Nigeria. I will do that. So the notice of termination must be issued before Wednesday, and I will publish it so that the efforts that the President is putting in, nobody is going to sabotage it.”
He expressed bitterness that contractors that have more than 25 jobs being supported by the Federal Government will be putting up such a poor showing, saying it doesn’t matter what the company says to stakeholders, the decision has been taken.
Umahi added, “Our conscience is very clear and we will publish all the warnings we gave to CCECC on this project so that the whole country will see it, because when we are being de-marketed, there is nothing anybody will say about the contractor.
“When we manage to pay, and then they cannot do the right construction, then they have to pay for it. If from tomorrow they don’t get to start amending this, I will come back and arrest the Chinese people who are on this project because they have taken the money, and they have to maintain these places.
“I was here three weeks ago. I begged them to maintain this mess; they did, and they didn’t do anything about it. Now it is developing, and very soon vehicles will start falling, and then people will start dying, and nobody will call them. So if they don’t do it, I will get them arrested.”