The Senior Special Assistant on Community Engagement (North-Central) to President Bola Tinubu, Abiodun Essiet, has condemned the slow pace of work on the Abuja-Lokoja and the Lokoja-Benin Road projects.
The presidential aide shared her reservations on Monday during the inspection of ongoing federal road projects in Kogi State.
She said, “No, no, not at all, as the progress of work done is not encouraging at all. Just a few months left and they have only been able to achieve not much.
“I’m not impressed by the level of progress being made, so that’s why the ecstacy is not there. That’s why we are pleading with the controller and the contractors to make sure that they intensify more efforts because this is a very busy road and a whole lot of people are expecting more from Mr President on this road, so we just want to urge the contractor to do more in terms of bringing more equipment, in terms of collaborating with other people to help make sure that this project is completed in due time, please.”
The Project Manager of the Dualisation of Lokoja-Benin Road being handled by CGC Nigeria Ltd, Abubakar Yaba, however, lamented poor funding of the project.
He attributed the slow pace of work to the paucity of funds.
He said the project has attained 38 per cent completion with time lapse of 90 per cent.
Yaba lamented that while over ₦59bn was certified, only about ₦54bn was paid with over ₦4bn outstanding.
But, in a swift response, Essiet argued that poor funding should be the reason for the delayed project.
She urged the contractor to mop funds in whatever way he can, promising that the Tinubu would pay the balance.
She said: “I think one of the things we look at when we give project to contractors is about your capacity and Mr. President assured that Renew Hope Intervention Fund will be channelled to pay these funds. So it’s about you as a contractor to go ahead and finish your job as agreed.
“Because if you mentioned that you didn’t have financial capacity to do this, they wouldn’t have awarded that contract to you. It’s because you assured us that you are going to finish this job. Mr. President assured that Renew Hope Fund will be also channelled to pay for all these.
“So that shouldn’t be a delay. So, wherever you can mop up funds, I can assure you that Mr President is going to pay.
“Wherever you can mop up funds, mop up funds because this project is very critical.”