The Federal Government has insisted that the N280 billion Bodo-Bonny road project, undertaken by construction giant, Julius Berger, must be completed by September this year.
The Minister of Works, David Umahi, stated this while speaking with newsmen at the end of a two-day inspection of ongoing construction work on some federal roads in Rivers and Abia states.
Umahi said while the Federal Government will commence the commissioning of the first set of road projects across the country from February to May 2025, the Bodo-Bonny road will be a special gift to President Bola Tinubu on October 1st.
Other projects inspected by the minister were the reconstruction of the Eleme section of the East-West Road by RCC, the Ahoada section of the East-West road leading to Bayelsa State by Setraco and the Port Harcourt-Aba-Enugu highway by CCECC.
Umahi disclosed that within the first two weeks of January, he will visit the six geo-political zones of the country to inspect work on various road projects as the Federal Government prepares to begin the commissioning of projects in February.
Expressing satisfaction with the quality of work on the Bodo-Bonny Road, the minister however frowned at the delay and urged the contracting firm to increase the pace in order to meet the September deadline, but not exceeding 1st October.
He said the idea of slope stabilization beyond September, which construction giant, Julius Berger, mentioned is not acceptable.
He said, “This work will not go beyond September. The idea of slope stabilization beyond September is not acceptable to us. This job has been badly delayed, and we are aware that going back and forth with Julius Berger on this project lasted for one year.
“Even there was a breach of the contract whereby Berger had to demobilize without notice to the client.
“And I want to commend Mr. President very highly for his commitment to the people of Niger Delta and, of course, indeed, to every section of this country.
“When Berger insisted that they must violate the agreement they reached with the previous government when the project was reviewed from N53 billion to N199 billion, they said it was not going to be varied.
“But when we came on board, Berger insisted that they need to renege on that agreement. So, I went to Mr President, and because of his commitment to every section of this country and in particular to the Niger Delta, he allowed us to still review the project by another N80 billion.
“So the total contract sum now is N280 million, but with a caveat that this project is non-varying and it must be completed in September 2025. And this project has lasted for more than five years, and it shouldn’t be.
“There is a marching order on NLNG and, of course, the Ministry of Works by Mr President to ensure that this project is completed. I’ve been here more than six times since I assumed office as minister.”
The minister however said whereas Berger had collected over 85 per cent of the initial N199 billion before the latest augmented sum was reviewed again, the work done so far is not commensurate.
He said, “So the ball is in their court. They have been given what they needed graciously by Mr President and so there is nothing to complain about again. The work quality is good, but we’ve agreed on milestones for completion. I have issued my directives and we will monitor the progress based on our meetings.
“This year we going to be apportioning blame publicly for any delay, whether it is contractor, the funding agent, the ministry staff or the Minister of Works, we will publicly apportion blame for any delay because President Bola Tinubu has provided all that is needed for us to advance the infrastructural development of this country in most of the projects.
“We need to commission this project latest on October 1st. That will be a gift to Mr President. There will be lighting and CCTV cameras and people will be able to travel at night.
Umahi expressed satisfaction at the quality of work being done at the Port Harcourt-Aba-Enugu section of the road, saying that the government will push the company (Arab Contractors) to complete it.
He stated, “There are four sections there, that’s one of the sections with Arab Contractors. So, we will push them to get the job completed so that it will be commissioned in April.
“We have set a target that every state Controller of Works must present us with four projects to be commissioned by Mr. President, beginning from February to 20th of May, 2025. So that will be one of them.”
Umahi also praised the quality of work on the section of the Port Harcourt-Aba-Enugu Highway handled by CCECC but expressed dismay at the pace of work, which he said is not commensurate with the funds expended by the government.
Briefing the minister earlier on the state of the Bodo-Bonny Road, an official of Julius Berger, Tim Nippert, said the total alignment of the project is almost 38 kilometres.
Nippert added, “We have more than 25 kilometres under dedicated road works. That means sand cement stabilization asphalt or base course works. And in Bonny town, we have five kilometres under construction of rigid pavement, reinforced concrete road.
“Then we have around three kilometres in total of bridges completed. Here where we are standing presently, we are finalizing within the next few weeks the required lay area preload. This is a section of five and a half kilometres which needs to be settled.”
He averred that the company expects to finish the entire project substantially by the third quarter of this year, pointing out that some other slope protection works, independent from the asphalt works, ‘may continue’ until completion.