All contractors involved in the construction of federal road projects across the country have been paid, the Federal Government has said.
According to the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, no contractor is being owed by the government and as a result none of them should delay construction and rehabilitation works on any federal road that is assigned to them.xxxxx
About two years ago, contractors who handled various federal road projects had complained of being owed billions of naira by the Federal Government, a development that made many of them to abandon their respective project sites.
But in a statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday by Fashola’s Communications Adviser, Hakeem Bello, the minister stated that government had paid all the contractors now engaged in road projects across the country.
Fashola was quoted as saying, “No contractor has any excuse to delay our work. For any contractor that does not perform, we have our remedies. It promises to be a profitable dry season that heralds a motorable rainy season.
“This is what Mr. President committed to in his January speech that you will see this government busy with infrastructure that will lay the critical foundation for economic revival and growth; and it is infrastructure that does it.”
According to the statement, the minister stated this after inspecting the phase I of the Section IV of the Benin-Lokoja dualisation project, Ehor-Benin City in Edo State.
Fashola said the government was committed to infrastructure development as a critical foundation for the nation’s economic revival and growth, adding that it would determine how much fuel was burnt on roads by drivers, how much time was being wasted on roads and how that would affect the cost of goods and services.
“So as this road moves, we expect to see shorter journey times, more efficient fuel use and that is money being saved in commuters’ pockets and we expect to see more competitive prices of goods and services. That is our economic journey; and we will deliver,” he stated.
The minister, according to the statement, was received and conducted round the ongoing road project by the Federal Controller of Works in Edo State, Oke Owhe, and senior personnel of the RCC, the construction company handling the project.
