Firms handling the reconstruction of the East West Road in the Benin – Sapele Road axis of Benin City, have been warned to sit up or consider themselves to be liable to the termination of their contract in about two weeks time having been served with warning letters by the Federal Ministry of Works.
Giving this hint on Saturday was Engr. Dave Umahi, the Minister of Works, while jointly addressing the media with the Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki at the state government house after paying the governor a courtesy call to signal part of the activities marking his tour of duty of federal roads in the state.
He singled out Levant Construction Company for been the most capable out of the bunch of three handling the project though the company was not meeting the spelt out specifications as laid down in the terms of contract.
He charged the officials of the Federal Ministry of Works, the supervising ministry to keep a tab on the job as it is been handled by the contractors with a promise to return for further inspection of the extent of work done.
According to him , “By Monday give them a warning letter to start permanent work and if by Monday they didn’t start give them 14 days’ notice of termination. We paid multi-billion naira for this job and we have seen that a lot of contractors in this country are just playing politics with us and we have emphasised this on several occasions.
“We will pay mobilisation fee to a contractor, we will never pay variation on price for that amount we have paid and that is the problem with Levant and after 14 days of notice of termination, if they don’t adhere to the terms of the contract I will personally come and terminate the job myself.”
He gave kudos to the Edo State Government for ensuring that the quality of work on the roads that it is constructing is as high as what is obtainable in the jobs been done by the federal government.
In his own submission, Governor Obaseki stated that devoid of politics his administration will always ensure that the quality of work that it does meets the highest possible standard and it serves the needs of the people adequately.
