Works Minister, David Umahi, who made the promise during his meeting with directors of the ministry in Abuja, urged them to be on their toes to ensure that the vision of sustainable road infrastructure development in the country is achieved.
Umahi proposed a review of agreements, cost, geo-technical evaluation among others of some of the existing contracts with a view to addressing the bottlenecks that have delayed or hindered execution of road projects across the country in the past.
He said:” We’ve some supervisions work to be done on roads. The directors and the consultants must work together and any erring contractor that doesn’t keep to contract agreement would be penalised. ‘’
“I won’t be able to go back to the President and Federal Executive Council for re-scope of work and contract, if the contractors deliberately delay the progress of road construction.”
Reiterating his commitment to the welfare of the workers, Umahi said what mattered most was how much of roads had been constructed or made motorable to ease the sufferings of Nigerians, adding that irrespective of position or social status, “any worker who is found wanting in terms of performance, risks being kept aside or outright replacement.”
The minister told directors that there was a difference between his ministry and other ministries, departments, and agencies, MDAs, was due to the fact that the “Works Ministry is measured in terms of the how much and the impact of the roads constructed.”
“The difference between us and other MDAs is that ours is what you can achieve in terms of roads, not speech. And our office is not the normal civil service office where you spend eight hours and close, at times you need to even work a weekends,” he assured that anyone who works would be appreciated.
Umahi appealed to directors to be God fearing in handling the assignment of the ministry, while disclosed that the President had made available the needed funds for execution of road contracts, but that there was need for review of the contract terms due to previous experiences.
The minister tasked the directors and contractors on integrity, identifying bad construction method, poor supervision, substandard materials as the foremost challenges of road contract execution in Nigeria.
“18 retired security personnel are to be engaged in supervision and monitoring for each of the six geopolitical zones of the country”, he said.
The representative of Permanent Secretary at the Meeting , Engr O.O. Awosanya earlier thanked the minister for creating enabling environment for staff to function well through provision of incentives and welfare , said “ Since I have been in the ministry this is the first time i will be seeing a minister so dedicated to staff welfare provisions”
Director Highways South West Engr Adedamola Kuti while responding to the ministers remarks assured the minister that both the staff and the consultants would work in synergy to deliver on the mandate of the Ministry.
