POLITICS
Reps Query $3.2 billion Port Harcourt to Maiduguri Narrow Gauge Railway Project Award
By Torkwase Nyiekaa, Abuja
The House Ad-Hoc Committee investigating the N72 billion Port Harcourt to Maiduguri rail project awarded since 2011, began hearing on Thursday.
The committee led by Abubakar Nalaraba, queried why the project was being abandoned after substantial payments had been made and the contracts were yet to be completed.
This, they said, amounted to wastage of scarce resources.
Invited to the hearing were the three companies who were awarded the contract namely CGGC Global Projects Nigeria Limited, Lingo Nigeria Limited and Eser Contracting and Industry Company Incorporation.
Also invited was the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) as well as the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP).
The BPP was absent at the hearing.The lawmakers also queried disparities in the reports submitted by the contractors and the NRC over the project.
Director of Operations, NRC, Niyi Ali, said the first segment of the project from Port Harcourt to Makurdi was awarded to Eser Contracting Industry company incorporated for a sum of N19.63 billion for a duration of 10 months.
The second segment was from Makurdi to Kuru, with a support line to Jos and also a support line from Kafanchan to Kaduna was awarded to CGGC Global Projects Nigeria Limited at the sum of N24.4 billion for a 10 month period also.
The third segment was from Kuru to Maiduguri and this was awarded to Lingo Nigeria Limited at the sum of N23.7 billion for 10 months also.
He said for Eser, the percentage of work completion is 88 percent from 2011 till date while 82 percent of the payment had been made. For CGGC he said the percentage of work completed is 90.4 per cent and payment percentage is 90. 35 percent.
For Lingo, he said, the percentage of work completion is 42.10 percent, which was due to security issues. He said the company has gotten 42 percent of their payment.
He also said the project had to be abandoned and they adopted an exit plan in 2020 following the award for the reconstruction, with additional lines, of the entire railway project by the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
However when asked to give a breakdown of the sum so far paid to Eser, Ali said the sum of N18 billion had been paid before the exit plan and N425 million paid after. He said there was still an outstanding payment of N1.1 billion.
Earlier the Marketing Manager of CGGC, Gift Etuk, said they were paid 75 percent of the contract sum contradicting the submission of the NRC.
Legal Adviser of Lingo Nigeria Limited, Ndubuisi Augustine, also contradicted the NRC saying their last payment was in 2014.
Mr Emmanuel Offordile represented the Managing Director of Eser, who he said was stuck in Turkey, due to restrictions of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The lawmakers also queried the continued payment to companies in 2020 even when they knew the project was going to be abandoned.
The committee directed that the Chief Executives of the companies must be in attendance of the next sitting of the committee given the gravity of the matter.
The Abia Chapter of the INEC Staff Welfare Association (ISWA) has warned its members to uphold the integrity of the commission and guard against the culture of manipulating election results.
The Abia Chairman of the association, Mr Collins Eze, gave the advice at the group’s general meeting and end-of-year party in Umuahia.
Speaking in an interview with newsmen on the sideline of the ceremony, Eze said that the staff members were adequately aware of their enormous responsibility and should ensure free, fair and credible elections.
He said: “We have also told our colleagues that anywhere they find themselves they should make sure that they do the needful by ensuring transparency in the conduct of elections.
“We have always told them not to allow anybody to induce them with money to manipulate election results.
“I’m happy that they have been building the capacity of our colleagues on election processes.
“So, in the coming years, we won’t have any problem in ensuring free, fair and peaceful elections.”
He said that the end-of-year party was special as it afforded them the opportunity “to wine and dine together as well as thank God for sustaining them in 2024”.
Eze said that his leadership had introduced various means of assisting members in dire financial needs by providing platforms to solicit suppory for them.
He expressed gratitude to members for their support and cooperation, describing them as the “secret behind the success of this administration”.
He said that 34 of at least 350 staff members of the commission in the state retired from service in 2024.
According to him, the development has placed a huge financial burden on the association, in terms of their welfare and entitlement as members.
Report says that each member received a carton of tomato paste as Christmas gift from the association. (NAN)
A chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Osita Okechukwu, has told the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to be thankful to God that its 16-year administration was not probed by the successive APC-led governments.Okechukwu stated this on Tuesday in Abuja, while reacting to a statement by PDP congratulating Ghanaians for the conduct of free, fair and transparent general elections.
Report says that PDP had, in a statement, said that the verdict of the people of Ghana in the presidential election was a signal to the APC that its days were numbered. The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, had said in the statement that the power of the people in Nigeria, just like in Ghana, would ‘surely prevail and end the APC’s oppressive rule’.This, he said, would “return Nigeria to the path of good governance, security, political stability and economic prosperity on the platform of the PDP in 2027.”However, in his reactions to Ologunagba’s statement, Okechukwu said that the PDP clan should thank God that former President Muhammadu Buhari and President Bola Tinubu, out of sheer statesmanship, had refused to probe ‘the 16 locus years of PDP administrations’.Okechukwu, a former Director-General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), described the 16 years of PDP administrations as ones full of squandering and lack of plan.He said that Nigeria had yet to recover from the humongous culture of impunity and trust deficit planted by PDP on the Nigerian soil.Okechukwu said corruption was among the culture of impunity, saying it governed the privatisation of Nigeria’s electricity value chain, a key element in the country’s industrialisation drive.“Another is the blatant rigging of the 2007 general elections which the foremost beneficiary, President Umaru Yar’Adua, out of good conscience and noble magnanimity, publicly acknowledged the malfeasance which characterised his victory,” he said.Okechukwu also mentioned what he called conscienceless sale of the legislative and ministerial quarters, the annual rentage of which, he said, was bleeding the country’s treasury.“Another one is the neglect of $23 billion Greenfield Refinery, which could have saved over $70 billion expended on importation of refined petroleum products and which simulated the economic hardship of today,” he said.On why, for nine years, the APC administration could not fix those challenges, he recalled the efforts made by the Buhari administration to reopen talks on the Greenfield Refinery which, according to him, the Chinese regrettably rebuffed.The former VON director-general said that Nigerians were not in a hurry to forget the deliberate breach of the rotational convention of president from the north to the south.He said that the country could not also forget the utter disregard for Section 7 of the PDP’s constitution which expressly mandated zoning.Okechukwu advised the PDP not to insult the sensibilities of Nigerians by assuming that citizens would easily forget how they were put in the harms way.He said that PDP should thank God that Buhari and Tinubu did not want to probe them, adding “that’s why Nigerians cannot decipher the difference between the two political parties.” (NAN)
Sen. Ned Nwoko (PDP-Delta) says that Local Government Administration is central to democracy in Nigeria as it ensures grassroots governance and service delivery at the local level.This is contained in a statement signed by Dr Michael Nwoko, the Chief of Staff to the lawmaker in Abuja on Monday.Nwoko said this on the occasion of the presentation of an award “Icon of Hope” to him by the Association of Local Government Vice Chairmen of Nigeria (ALGOVC).
He was represented by his Chief of Staff. He said that the importance of local government administration in the country could not be overemphasised, as it was the bedrock of democracy.According to him, local governments in Nigeria play key roles in the country’s democracy by promoting participatory democracy, providing services, and representing citizens.“Local Governments help determine local needs and how to meet them. They also act as a link between the centre, state, and local people.“They are created to decentralise power and bring the government closer to the people. They perform both mandatory and concurrent functions.“It is in view of this that I took it upon myself to enhance the viability of local governments through the Paris and London club loan refunds,”he said.Dr Folashade Olabanji-Oba, ALGOVC National Chairman, while presenting the award at its 7th Annual National Conference, said the award was in recognition of the lawmaker’s significant contributions to strengthening local government administration.She highlighted Nwoko’s critical role in ensuring the Paris and London Club loan refunds, a financial breakthrough she said enhanced the capacity of local governments nationwide.(NAN)
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