Nigerian Government to spend N49.03b on projects

Nigerian Government to spend N49.03b on projects

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) in Nigeria has approved the augmentation of poorly designed projects in two satellite towns of Kubwa and Karshi in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja and the dredging of the lower River Niger with some 49 billion naira (about 327 million dollars).

Briefing reporters after the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting in Abuja, Information Minister, Labaran Maku, said the Nigerian Government had no choice than to approve the sum to complete the projects initially awarded by the past government.

He declared that two projects in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and another one in Lagos had been reviewed upward from the initial combined sum of N65.1 billion to N114.1 billion, which amounts to about 760 million dollars.

The projects
The approval covers the award of the contract for the Provision of Engineering Infrastructure to Kubwa Satellite Town (Districts 4 and 5), Karshi Satellite Town ( District 1 and 2) as well as the dredging of Lower River Niger.

Background

The government had in August 2011 also approved augmentation of the contract for the construction of the East-West Road by N106 billion (from N138.931 billion to N245.9 billion) for the same reason of poor design as the roads were without shoulders.

The information minister, who briefed the press alonside Minister of State for Federal Capital Territory, Jumoke Akinjide and Minister of Transport, Senator Idris Umar, said most of the jobs for which augmentations were approved were without proper design.

Costing

 Maku said: “with the completion of the final engineering design, there were huge disparities between the original quantities and the final engineering design, and the inadequacies were results of changes in specifications, increase in the total number of roads and size of various categories of roads along with the accompanying infrastructure services in the districts.”

He added that there were also variations in the prices of materials and labour, as well as fluctuation in the currency exchange rate, which contributed to the increase in the cost of the projects.

The dredging of the lower River Niger, which Maku said had been completed, leaving the maintenance and building of ports along the way, was also augmented with N8.528 billion due to the fact that the surveys carried out in 2002 was used in 2008 by which time it was discovered that there were some faults with it or was slightly obsolete.

The minister explained that “Results of Independent and confirmatory surveys carried out by five different surveyors, , showed that the Bill of Engineering Measurement and Evaluation (BEME) were not correct as surveys indicated substantial increases in volumes of dredged materials which necessitated the request for the augmentation of the contract sums by a total of N8.528 billion.”

NP/Adekusibe/Ekata