FG Jacks Up Contracts Of Secretariat Projects In Five States To N17.5bn

– How Contractors Demanded N3.9bn Variations -Fashola

– Usuman Dam Gets Extra N1.5bn For Rehabilitation

The Federal Government on Wednesday raised the contract cost of its secretariat projects in five states to N17.5billion.

The figure rose by N3.9bn from the N13.5bn the projects were first awarded in 2011.

The Federal Executive Council approved the new contract cost of N17.5bn at its virtual session presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House, Abuja.

The projects are located in Anambra, Bayelsa, Nasarawa, Osun and Zamfara States, according to the Minister of Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola.

The minister explained that the raise followed variation requests by the various contractors executing 16 segments of the secretariat contracts across the five states, following the delay in executing them 10 years after they were awarded.

Speaking with State House Correspondents after the meeting, the former Governor of Lagos State said the variations were agreed to by the government because of the commitment to complete the projects.

He added that civil servants in the affected states had no permanent office accommodation, years after the states were carved out of other states and assets were shared unevenly between them.

He gave details, “The variation was for N3.975bn total for all the five. They are handled by different contractors, but each one wanted a variation and the total sum of variation came to N3.975bn, and we sought council’s approval and the approval was granted.

“So, the old contract price of N13.565bn has now been increased to N17.541bn.

“These secretariats are necessary to enable us to house federal workers in these states. The problem arose from the creation of new states. In asset sharing, some of the old states took the whole secretariats, so our staff in those states, across all federal ministries, are either in rented official premises for their work or squatting in state government premises.

“For example, my ministry has controllers in all the 36 states; Controllers for Works, Controllers for Housing. These are some of the people, apart from other ministries, who have staff in those states.

“Council approved this variation and the intention is to enable us to complete the projects. You may recall I briefed you some time last year about an approval for the award for the furniture. So, all the furnisture has been completed; they are in the warehouse. It’s just for us to complete the buildings now and install them.”

Meanwhile, the FEC also approved another contract for the rehabilitation of the of Lower Usuman Dam Water Treatment Plant, Phase II, in the sum of N1.5bn.

The approval brought the total contract cost to N2.5bn from the initial N1.017bn.

According to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mohammed Bello, the project was awarded to Cupero Nigeria Ltd, with a completion period of 12 months.

He spoke more on the nature of the project, “The scope of work entails general rehabilitation, repairs of and replacement of electro-mechanical components and laboratory restoration, rehabilitation of chemical and chlorine buildings, and general civil engineering work.

“As you know, water treatment plant is a very important infrastructure project. The contract is to rehabilitate that treatment plant which has been in operation for about 30 years. And it fills into Mr President’s agenda of providing needed infrastructure and rehabilitating already existing infrastructure.

“By the time it is done, the water treatment plant will continue to provide service to residents of the Federal Capital city of Abuja for may be another 30 years to come”