The Minister of Works, David Umahi, has called on Julius Berger to show corporate patriotism by accepting N740.79 billion as the reviewed sum for completion of the remaining 82 kilometers in the contract for the rehabilitation of section II of Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano road.
Umahi said when he received the new Managing Director of Julius Berger, Dr Pier Lubasch, said the delay by the company to move to site was causing untold hardship to road users.
In a statement issued on Wednesday by the Minister’s Special Adviser on Media, Mr Uchenna Orji, Umahi said the company should decide within a week whether to continue with the project or not.
“If Berger is not doing it, then let’s have other people do the job and within the time that we can control price.
“We’ve had more than 20 letters from Berger on this. It is a ping pong game from Julius Berger. The prices rose from ₦710 billion to ₦740 billion.”
He expressed dismay that Julius Berger, which has had years of patronage by the Federal Government and sub-national governments, is not realistic in the contract pricing, especially at this time of Nigeria’s economic challenges.
He urged the contractor to within seven days accept or reject the approved reviewed contract sum, or face contract determination as the Federal Government cannot be held to ransom by the desire for unrealistic pricing and augmentation by contractors.
He said, “This offer is not subject to any condition. It’s not subject to any condition that is being dished out here. It’s taken as given after more than 14 months. I’m sorry, I have to sound this way because there must be an end to negotiation. If anybody says there shouldn’t be an end to negotiation, then that person is not a business person. If you have negotiated for 14 months without any result, you should terminate the negotiation.”
The minister told the new Managing Director of the need for construction companies working with the Ministry to prepare to make sacrifices in terms of value for money and realistic contract pricing to encourage the much-needed road infrastructure revolution for the nation’s economic transformation.
Pier Lubasch, new Managing Director of the company, promised to revert as soon as possible on the issues sought to be addressed and hoped that consensus would be reached for the project to take proceed without further delay.
