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  • We’ll pay road contractors based on quality of job delivery – Fashola

    The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, has said that henceforth contractors handling federal roads in the country will be paid according to their performance on the job.

    Fashola made this known when he inspected work on sections two and three of the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway, covering the Umuahia-Lokpanta-Enugu axis.

    He said the measure became necessary to enable the government to know the contractors that were genuine and committed to completing their job.

    The minister said that the government expected the contractors to invest their own funds in the job, believing that they would be paid upon the satisfactory completion of the contract.

    Fashola said that government was determined to change the old practice where contractors would stop work and idle away on the site because they were not paid.

    “Continue to work, do not stop. Send in your certificates and let your consultants and the controllers go through and verify them and once we are satisfied, we will pay,” he said.

    He urged the contractors not to bother about looking at the budget to confirm whether or not their names appeared, saying that “the budget is for the bulk and not sections of the road.”

    The minister also inspected the Arochukwu Road in Abia, and said that he was satisfied with the quality of work by the contractors.

    He expressed joy that the Federal Government had succeeded in bringing the contractors back to site, after three years of inactivity due to the lack of payment.

    He said that the resumption of work had helped to revive the economy, adding that workers, who were laid off, had been reinstated by the contractors.

    “This is the expectation of President Muhammadu Buhari in using the infrastructure projects to get the nation’s economy out of recession.

    The contractors were unanimous in their request for regular funding of the projects to enable them to deliver in record time.

    They complained that they suspended work on the projects after they exhausted the initial payments made in 2013, when the contracts were awarded.

    For instance, the Project Manager of Setraco Nigeria Limited, Mr Fouad Sarraf, said that the company, which is handling the Umuahia-Okigwe portion of the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway, only received N10.9 billion out of the N39.5 billion since the job was awarded in 2013

    He said that they would need N28 billion to be able to deliver the 39-km road in two years.

    On the Arochukwu Road, the contractor, Mr Nwofor Chukwumeka, said that he had the capacity to complete the 15-km-long project on schedule but said that his major challenge was funding.

    Meanwhile, the minister promised to effect the release of funds to him to enable him to expedite work on the project

    He further promised that the contract could be extended to Ohafia, measuring 17-km, should he deliver the Arochukwu project on target.

    TheNewsGuru.com reports that Fashola had on Thursday inspected the Umuahia-Aba end of the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway as well as the Aba-Ikot Ekpene Road, where contractors had also returned to site.

     

    NAN

     

  • Fashola decries neglect of inter-state roads

    Fashola decries neglect of inter-state roads

    The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, has expressed displeasure over the neglect of inter-state roads in some parts of the country in preference for inter-community roads.

    Fashola expressed the feeling in Umuahia on Thursday during an interview with newsmen.

    He came to inspect reconstruction work on Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway and Aba-Ikot Ekpene Road in Abia.

    The minister, who earlier inspected federal road projects in Imo, said that in the state, funds meant for the construction of the Owerri-Umuahia Road were deployed to building inter-community roads.

    The minister said that there was no part of the country “where the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing is not doing one thing or another.

    “But it is important to emphasise that in Imo State, for instance, in the past, funds that were perhaps meant to build inter-state roads, have gone into inter-community roads.

    “So we saw on our records Owerri-Umuahia Road under construction but the truth is that no work is going on there.

    “The work is going on in the roads leading to the villages instead of using the money to build Owerri-Umuahia Road, which connects two big economies down to Akwa Ibom and Enugu states and facilitate more trade.

    “The villages where those roads are built, what is the business there other than one person making coffin?

    “Regrettably, the main road where all the economic activities take place was not getting attention but that was being represented to us as being done,” he said.

    The minister promised to change the scenario.

    He said that the ministry would seek legislative backing to enable it to focus on its mandate of building inter-state roads, such as Owerri-Okigwe-Umuahia Road.
    “These are the roads we will concentrate on without prejudice to what the elected representatives of the people want to do at the local level,” Fashola said.

    He said that it was not a diversion of funds by states that preferred to do so but stressed that it was imperative to place more emphasis on roads with the heaviest traffic than the community roads with lighter traffic.

    The minister expressed delight that contractors had returned to work on the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway, which was abandoned midway because of the lack of funds.

    He said that the contractors were not paid for three years but that the present administration ensured their payment in 2016.

    “Our government at the federal level is blind to party, when it comes to development,” the minister said, adding: “every state of the federation is part of the constituency of President Muhammadu Buhari.

    “We have his mandate to partner not to compete with the state and the mandate goes down to our controllers to make themselves available to support the state.”

    Meanwhile, the Abia Commissioner for Works, Chief Eziuche Ubani, who accompanied the minister on the inspection, said the state government had secured another dump site and would soon fence off the one at the Umuahia end of the expressway.

    Ubani expressed regrets that the dump site, which covered the Enugu-bound lane of the expressway, obstructed construction work.

    The minister was later joined by Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu of Abi to inspect work on the dilapidated Aba-Ikot Ekpene Road.

    He assured the contractor handling the project, Chief Eddie Anyanwu, that the ministry would give him the necessary support to complete the job before the rainy season.

    Contract for the reconstruction of Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway was awarded in 2013 by the Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.

     

  • Senate orders probe of Fashola, BPP over alleged inflation of N2.4bn contracts

    THE Senate, yesterday orderd its Committees on Public Procurement and Works to probe alleged irregularities in awards and inflation of two contract sums which show excess of N2.4 billion by the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing and Bureau of Public Procurement, BPP.

    The Senate also directed the committee to forward the report of the probe within one week. Fashola The decision of the Senate was sequel to a motion moved by Senator Dino Melaye (APC, Kogi West) on alleged irregularities in the award of contracts for the construction and rehabilitation of road and bridge projects in the first and second batch forwarded to it by the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing through letters dated November 7 and 15, 2016 as contained in the 2016 budget implementation.

    In the motion, Senator Melaye, who alleged that BPP went beyond its mandate in the approval of contract awards by the ministry by not only inflating some of the contract sums, but also re-awarded them to different companies, stressed, however, that the BPP in contravention of the Public Procurement Act went beyond its mandate to award contracts to companies not recommended by the procuring entity.

    Melaye said: “For instance, the procuring entity recommended Deux Project Ltd for the rehabilitation of Numan-Jalingo road for N11.7 billion; the BPP awarded the contract to Rock Bridge Construction Ltd at N12.8 billion which is N1.1 billion in excess.

    “While the Ministry of Works recommended the rehabilitation of Nenwe-Nomhe-Nburubu Nara road project to Don Machris Global Resources Ltd at N5.1 billion, the BPP awarded it to Arab Contractors Nigeria Ltd at N6.4 billion in excess of N1.3 billion.”

    Melaye informed that the recommended contract sum by the ministry, which is already high, ought to have been ordinarily reviewed downward, but BPP by its action reviewed them upward and subsequently awarded them to companies not recommended by the procuring entity in flagrant violation of Section 19 of the Public Procurement Act.

    He said: “The Ministry of Power, Works and Housing requested via a letter dated November 15, 2016, the Bureau of Public Procurement for due process certified to award contracts for 10 and 13 projects for the construction and rehabilitation under the 2016 budget implementation.”

    Melaye observed that the BPP in the exercise of its mandate informed the ministry that there was no objection to their requests, adding: “But later wrote back to the ministry that due process of ‘no objection’ cannot be granted to the ministry in award of the said contracts.”

    The Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who seconded Melaye’s motion, said any committee assigned to look into the allegation should do a thorough job in finding out details of infractions between the ministry and BPP as far as the contracts were concerned.

    According to him, the country’s procurement process needs to be sensitive to our seasons and cautioned that the investigation should not be allowed to disrupt ongoing contract execution.

  • Fake estate developers on rampage in Nigeria – Fashola

    The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola on Monday in Abuja raised alarm over the increasing number of unqualified estate developers in the nation’s housing sector.

    Fashola was speaking at the Second Quarterly Presidential Business Forum in Abuja which serves as a platform to engage and interact with the private sector to update them on government’s policies, programmes and activities.

    The forum was presided over by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.

    The minister lamented that out of every 20 to 30 housing estate proposal received by his ministry, they hardly secured one genuine proposal.

    “The real experience we had is that perhaps out of every 20 to 30 proposals we receive you will be lucky to find one good one.

    “We have heard people who come to us saying that they want to build 10,000 houses. But when we test their technical capacity, we found that they never built a house any where before.

    “And the question I always ask is if it was really so easy to build 10,000 houses why do you need government if the market can absolve it, because there is a clear demand.

    “But there are some missing links and the audit of previous commitments showed less than 10 per cent of success rate or the previous commitment entered into by the federal government for housing over the last decade had delivered only about 10 per cent of their expectation. So, sometime is wrong.

    “We have people who come to us saying ooh that they want to invest money, they have five billion dollars in an account. I said, `where is the five billion dollars? because I know that the Ministry of Finance is looking to raise a billion dollars from a very credible risk.

    “So, there are a lot of people also saying things that are not possible, ’’ he said.

    The minister, however, noted that some members of the private sector had taken benefits of the existing government policies and legislation such as tax holiday under the guidelines issued by the ministry of finance for the development of public infrastructure.

    He revealed that his ministry had entered into such agreement with some private companies including the Dangote Group and called on other companies to look at the model with a view to enabling them to benefit from such arrangements.

    He reassured Nigerians that the federal government was committed to finding ways to pay verifiable outstanding debts to contractors across the country.

    On power, the minister disclosed that some power projects would soon be completed in Kaduna and some states to boost electricity supply across the country.

    In his contributions at the forum, the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Sen. Udoma Udo Udoma said that there are a total of 59 strategies but 12 had been prioritised based on their importance to the success of the nation’s recovery plan.

    He said as part of the recovery plan government would sell some of its identified but ‘yet-to-be-named’ assets to ensure speedy pulling out of economic recession.

    According to him, federal government plans to restore crude oil production to 2.2 million barrels per day and raise it to 2.5 million by 2020 as part of its Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP).

    The minister said other strategies included acceleration of non-oil revenue generation, drastic cost cut, aligning monetary, trade and fiscal policies and expand Infrastructure especially power, roads and rail and improve ease of doing business.

    He said the strategies also included the expansion of the government’s social investment programmes, deliver on agricultural transformation, acceleration and implementation of the National Industrial Revolution Plan using special economic zones as well as focusing on priority sectors.

     

     

    NAN

  • Nigerians! ‘Expect poor power supply as generation drops to 2662 megawatts’

    From all indications, Nigerians might suffer poor power supply henceforth following an announcement by The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) that the nation’s power generation capacity dropped from 3,959 megawatts on Jan. 4 to 2,662 megawatts on Jan. 22.

    The Nigerian Electricity System Operator (SO) website, a sub agency of TCN, disclosed the figure in its daily forecast on power generation data in Lagos on Sunday.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that TCN attributed the drop to low water levels at the hydro power stations and dearth of gas to the power generating companies.

    TCN said the total output of 2,662.20 megawatts from all the generation companies on Sunday had been transferred to the 11 distribution companies across the country.

    According to the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) operational report for Jan. 4, the power sector hit a peak generation of 4,959 megawatts but dropped to 2,662.20 megawatts on Jan. 22.

    NESI said the sector recorded highest system frequency of 51.32Hz and lowest system frequency of 48.52 Hz, while the highest and the lowest voltage recorded on Sunday were 372KV and 300KV, respectively.

    An official of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), who preferred anonymity, told NAN that electricity generation had been dwindling due to challenge of accessing gas by generation companies.

    The official said that low level water levels at the country’s hydro thermal stations also contributed to the drop in generation.
    He said that most hydro stations are currently confronted with low water challenges to generate energy.

    The TCN official said that this often caused system collapse when the system scrabbled to distribute energy from the grid to distribution companies and the quantum of energy was not sufficient.

    According to him, it is a challenging period for power sector but it will get better once the hydro swing into high water level and gas becomes available.

    He attributed the drop in generation to the attack launched against pipeline facilities belonging to the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) on Jan. 17 around Ugheli in Delta State.

    Similarly, a top official of Egbin Power Station, who also pleaded anonymity, said that the power plant, with a capacity of 1,320 megawatts, now generates 340 megawatts due to gas constraint.
    The official said that the 340 megawatts Egbin generated was wheeled out to the national grid at 6.00 am on Sunday.

    The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, had on Friday said that the sabotage of power assets by militants prevented Nigeria from generating 7,000 MW of electricity.

    “Today, at its most frugal, the nation’s power grid would support 6,500MW; pushed to its limit, it would carry 7,200MW.

    “So it is not true when you hear that the grid capacity is not more than 5,000MW. It is growing every day and more projects are coming up.

    “We have completed some and more are still coming up. So that is where we are,’’ Fashola said at the Nextier Power Dialogue in Abuja on Friday.

    The Minister said while power was out due to attacks in one axis, the expansion of either the grid or gas supply was kept alive on another axis and hydro power was also being expanded.

  • Nigeria not the only country to close international airport – Fashola

    The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola dazzled the Senate on Tuesday, when he said that the proposed closure of Abuja international Airport was the best decision for Nigeria, adding that other countries across the world had, at one time or the other, closed their airport too, as safety measures.

    Fashola was summoned by the Senate on Thursday, to make contributions on the ongoing debate on the planned closure of the airport.

    According to the Minister, closing the airport for the period of 6 weeks was a good safety measure, as failure to carry out the repair of the runway could pose great danger to the lives of passengers.

    He argued that countries like India, Colombia, Philippines and others had shut down operations of airlines in their international airport in the past, adding that Nigeria would not be the first in that regard.

    On why Kaduna airport was chosen as alternative route for the said period, despite the proximity of Niger airport to Abuja, Fashola said the road network of Abuja – Kaduna route is more motorable than the Abuja – Minna route.

    He, therefore, urged the Senate and Nigerians, to allow the Ministry of Aviation carry out repair on the runway of Abuja international Airport, in the better interest of the masses.

    He also advised that the use of Kaduna airport would be the best alternative, for the period of 6 weeks.

  • ‘If you don’t have the skill and patience to serve, leave’, Fashola warns DISCOS

    The Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, on Monday warned the distribution companies in the country to step up their service delivery or quit.

    Fashola gave the warning at the opening ceremony of the 11th Monthly Stakeholders meeting in Lagos.

    According to him, we all know the issues around metering and billing system; we must build the trust and confidence that customers’ complains will be addressed.

    “We need to do whatever is possible in our various distribution areas to improve the quality of service and continue to train our personnel to recognise that customer is king.

    “If we cannot provide or solve their problems, we own it a duty to explain what we are doing.

    “We own it a duty to fish out a few members of staff, not all, because we have some dedicated staff.

    “I am conscious of the challenges the operators are facing.

    “We are working as hard as we can to make the environment more responsive to you and as I have said and will repeat that as pioneers, you will carry some burdens.

    “You will have to sacrifice, perhaps more than what you have done,’’ he said.

    Fashola said that without the customers and the consumers, there would be no business.

    “I think that all of us in the public and private sector must understand that. If you don’t have the skill and the patient to serve, leave.

    “But I am optimistic that things will get better, I am optimistic that we can win together and we can win for the Nigeria people,” the minister said.

    On the liquidity issues, Fashola said that government was working with other development partners.

    “Local and international partners would have shown commitment and inspiring appetite to play in this market.

    “We are trying to see what we can do together in order to bring the liquidity issues under some control and from there eventually solve it.

    “Our partners in government are also inspiring and show understanding of what the challenges are. So, it is quick decision making now.

    “Collaboration and decisions will be fair, but firm, and we expect that people will respect the decisions and also processes to be re-engaged as they come,” the minister said.

    In his remarks, the Managing Director, Ikeja Electric, Mr Anthony Youdeiwoe, said that 2016 was a challenging year for stakeholders.

    According to him, though, the challenges still remain, they are better discussed whenever we meet like this.’’

    He said that efforts were also ongoing to address the challenges and proffer solutions.

  • If we survived recession in 1989, we can survive it now – Fashola

    The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has said that if the country could survive the scorching recession of 1989, it will definately survive and even come out of the present economic recession stronger and better.

    The immediate past governor of Lagos State spoke at the special Town Hall Meeting in Abuja, organized by the Ministry of Information and Culture.

    He called on youths not to despair and assured that “there is light at the end of the tunnel”.

    In his words: “Between 1979 and 1983 when I was in school, Nigeria had a lot of money in reserve. There was nothing we couldn’t buy, but by 1984 the money was gone.

    “We spent the money on all sorts of things, including drinks. There was no kind of drinks that you would not find in the country then. That was the time we started importing rice, other food items and exotic drinks.

    “However, 1989 was my first contact with recession. That was when it became very difficult to buy sugar and milk and all kinds of imported drinks suddenly disappeared.”

    Fashola further noted that the recession in 1985 was so bad, that there were no more cafeterias in schools.

    “We used to eat a meal at the cafeteria at 50 kobo, including chicken, egg, bread and tea.

    “To feed as a student then was N45 a month for three good meals daily. In 1985 when that disappeared, Nigeria did not disappear”, he said.

    Fashola also spoke about how some of his friends left the country, while he stayed back because of his belief in Nigeria.

    “I believed so much in the future of this country; I remained, worked hard, though I never knew I would sit here as a minister.

    “So I want to say to you the youth: don’t lose faith, don’t despair, there is hope and light at the end of the tunnel”, he added.

    He added that the 2017 Budget, tagged ‘Budget of Recovery and Growth’, is meant to address recession.

    “Only the president cannot recover and grow the economy; everybody must understand that we are at the time when we must work our hardest,” the minister said.