Indigenous contractors under the aegis of All Indigenous Contractors Association of Nigeria (AICAN) on Tuesday blocked the main entrance to the Federal Ministry of Finance, Abuja, demanding that the Federal Government settle their outstanding debt of N760 billion for completed 2024 capital projects.
The contractors had earlier last month, blocked the main entrance to the National Assembly for two consecutive days, forcing the House of Representatives to suspend plenary and issuing a seven-day ultimatum to the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun; Minister of Budget and National Planning, Atiku Bagudu and the Accountant General of the Federation, Shamsudeen Ogunjimi, to pay all outstanding debts owed them and ensure the implementation of the 2025 budget.
It took the intervention of the Senate, led by its spokesperson, Adeyemi Adaramodu, for the contractors to suspend the protest.
Yesterday, the contractors barricaded the Ministry of Finance gate, vowing to remain there to disrupt activities in the ministry if their demands were not met.
The contractors said they had completed and verified several capital projects across key ministries and agencies, but that the N760 billion payment warrants issued in September were yet to be honoured.
According to AICAN President Jackson Nwosu, the non-payment has pushed many of his members into severe financial distress, as most sourced funds from commercial banks based on government assurances of prompt payment. He said the meetings the leadership of the association had held with Edun since the suspension of the last protest have not produced any useful results.
According to him, the Minister has been shifty and refused to be categorical on the date the money would be paid.
“On Thursday last week, we had a meeting with the minister, but he was still avoiding mentioning when the government will pay. That is what they have been doing. We have decided to take to the streets of Abuja from Tuesday to express our displeasure,” he said.
The Federal Government is said to be owing contractors over N2 trillion for 2024 capital projects, which have been completed. But the verified amount is N760 billion.
The contractors said they have not received their payments despite the National Assembly’s intervention, which authorised the Federal Government to borrow over N1 trillion to finance the outstanding.
They accused the government of prioritising payment of foreign contractors connected to government officials over domestic contractors. The government has had issues with the implementation of the capital expenditure component of its budget since 2023.
The situation has resulted in the extension of the implementation of the 2023 capital projects to 2024 and that of 2024 has been extended to December.
The implementation of 2025 has yet to start, even though 2025. Stakeholders blame the new bottom-up cash planning policy of the government for the delay in the release of funds, describing it as clumsy.
According to the fourth quarter 2024 budget implementation report released recently by the Budget Office, a total of N5.81 trillion out of the N11.59 trillion earmarked as capital expenditure in the 2024 budget had been released and cash-backed The report, however, revealed that only N3.27 trillion (81.91 per cent) of the total amount released and cash-backed was utilised by MDAs as at 30th June.
