The Minister of Works, Senator David Umahi has given the contractor seven days ultimatum to redesign Benin-Sapele.
The minister insisted that the road would be redesigned irrespective of the fact that the contractor has gotten advance payment.
The minister disclosed this on Monday during the joint inspection of some of the federal government road projects linking Edo and Delta States in Benin.
Director of Information, Press and Public Relations Unit, Blessing Lere-Adams in a statement issued Monday said Umahi inspected the projects alongside the Deputy Governor of Delta State, John Onyeme and the Commissioner for Roads and Bridges in Edo State, Osazemen Uzamere with some stakeholders.
Umahi said: “We have directed them to immediately maintain the road. We are redesigning the road irrespective of the fact that they have gotten advance payment, we are redesigning the road on concrete.
“We have agreed with the commissioner of Works and Bridges in Edo State that the drains should be opened so that the water can go out in order for the contractor to maintain the road, I am giving the contractor 7 days to come up with the new design so that we all look at it together.”
“I have looked at the road projects from Abuja to Benin City, the intention of the past administration all the way from Abuja to Benin City, very wonderful intention, I commend the initiative, but Nigerians do not have value for all money spent on the roads.
“I was on the road for 14 hours with all the securities attached to me and if I could be on the road for 14 hours imagine what ordinary Nigerians are passing through without security, this is not acceptable.”
Umahi added that unless the procurement process is changed, the country cannot move forward.
He added: “Unless we change our procurement process, this country cannot move forward. I am very happy that Mr President is a man of infrastructure, he is a man that knows how every aspect of this country will be reset. I am very happy about that and I will do everything within my power to support him.”
“On the side of the contractors there are no good intentions, they don’t have enough personnel that are qualified, I have just directed that every project must have a Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) registered engineer to be the project manager for all contracts for every company on the road and the person must not have less than 15 years on road construction and I have also directed that we shall no more do surface dressing on our road shoulders.
“I have directed that all projects must stop and be redesigned on concrete. The truth is that none of these roads that are built from Abuja to Benin will last more than 5 years and that is very unfortunate.”
The minister pointed out that the roads are failing because most of the contractors didn’t do what is called penetration test.
Umahi also decried that the bitumen imported into the country are adulterated, saying, ‘they should go to Ondo and Ogun State and develop our abundant bitumen there “
He added: “We don’t want to put anybody out of business but we must develop our economy, they should employ our engineers; material engineers, geo technical engineers, surveyors, structural engineers and road engineers. Every project should not have less than seven professionals supervising it for the Ministry of Works.
“We are going to reset our road construction so that the people can smile again under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.’