Power-starved Nigerians must find the news that contractors handling some major power projects in the country (who had abandoned them, in some cases for upward of two years), are returning to sites, quite cheering. Indeed, there is every cause for them to be happy, considering the pivotal place of power in the economy. But then, the cause of the sudden change of heart by the contractors gives cause for worry. According to the report, they are returning to site just because of the fear of the incoming Buhari administration. For the contractors, therefore, the fear of Buhari would appear to be the beginning of wisdom.
We do not find this amusing because contract award is serious business. Tenders are supposed to come from various contenders and the best of them is picked after usually rigorous selection processes. But what we find in many situations in the country is that, often, due process is jettisoned in the award of contracts, as cronies and relations of people in government are given jobs for which they lack the technical expertise and even financial capability.
The results are the many abandoned contracts that dot the country’s landscape, with huge sums of money gone down the drain. Some of these projects too may have followed that trajectory, but for the Buhari government that is set to take over from the incumbent on May 29. As in similar cases in the past, the contractors would later come up with requests for variation, which in some cases would more than double the original contract cost. Interestingly, many governments would gladly pay the revised costs because their officials are in cahoots with the contractors.
Abandonment of contracts is intolerable for any contract at all; it is even the more inhuman and indefensible in the much-needed power sector where results were expected as early as yesterday. That these contractors had shunned various entreaties by the present government to return to sites, including threats by the Vice President, Namadi Sambo, speaks volumes of the unholy friendship between many business interests in the country and the government.
But what do we expect in a situation where, for instance, the power sector firms are so close to government that both of them keep entertaining themselves with public funds. For instance, even after the government had privatised the power firms, it keeps granting them loans while the firms, in turn, rubbed the back of the government and the ruling party with a hefty donation of N500million as campaign fund in the last elections.
Anyway, we welcome the contractors back to site, but we must say that we are unhappy that Buhari’s imminent coming on the stage is the motivation. As responsible corporate citizens, contractors who have been duly mobilised are expected to execute the contracts. That even those of them whose projects were delayed based on non-release of funds are also mobilising resources to go to site is indication that things can work in the country where the government decides to make them work. Where are those who were supposed to monitor the contracts in the first place? Were they compromised or intimidated by the closeness of the contractors to the government?
All said, we need to build strong institutions, and not strong personalities. It is good that Buhari’s name invokes fear in the minds of people who might want to short-change the tax-payer; but it is better to have a situation where such people would be afraid of the system and the structures that ensure compliance with procedures or punish infractions without fear or favour. As for the power projects’ contractors who had been duly mobilised, they should be made to account for every kobo they collected. And there should be no room for variations, except where the cause of delay is traced to non-release of funds or late release of same.
