Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi has asked contractors handling various road construction projects across the state to return to site and complete their jobs or else return the monies paid to them back to the coffers of the government.
The Governor who stated this on Friday when he hosted three construction company in a meeting in government house said, “we are here to discuss very passionately and sincerely on the projects to see how we can move various projects that have been abandoned”.
Adding that, “maybe as a result of change of leadership and as a result of our own knowledge of how procurements are done before, which we found them to be abnormal and we have told the world that we are not here for witch-hunting”.
The Governor said his administration is going to discuss with the contractors from the side of knowledge and best practice so that the projects will be completed.
“You have the chance of doing it or exiting it. So far, we don’t have contract with most of you because the tenure of the contracts are over and given the performance agreement and what have you, advance payment and agreement you have presented have expired, some you are owing us money and you have stopped work and we don’t know why you stopped”, Governor Bala noted.
The governor who explained that the advance payment is there, pointed that, “some of you, you have issue of one doing the substructure and the other one doing the final work which we found very abnormal and of course the basic engineering management and evaluation is not as far as we are concerned, in tandem with the global best practice on pricing and price competitiveness”.
Bala said that the Bauchi state government will give the contractors chances to explain so that agreement can be reached on what to do said “previously, our officers have discussed with you, some of you have made concessions, we appreciate, we understand some of you are not ready to make concessions”.
Governor Bala who maintained that Bauchi state government under his leadership will not compromise vowed not to beg any contractor to do the needful.
“I’m not here to beg anybody, I’m here with my lawyers, you either do it or leave it. I am not interested on anything that you have done in the past, but what I am going to do now, I will do it very well. CGC, I know you very well, I have given you over a 100 billion contract in Abuja, and you have done it, the same thing with engr. Eze, who was incharge of bureau of public enterprises, and procurement and due process”, he said.
He said further that, “so we are not novice, we know our terms, we know what we are doing, I spoke to your MD in China Mr. Lee, I expected your MD to come here, because our contracts to you is to the tune f 15 billion, I find it disrespecting for him not to come here”.
The Governor who stressed his administration’s resolved to serve the people of his state said that the government of Bauchi state will discourse with the contracting companies with a view to reaching an agreement.
“We are not EFCC, if we are unable to agree, we will go somewhere because government is large. You have the choice of doing it, if you don’t want to do it, leave it and pay us our advance money that we paid you so that we can get other contractors to do the job for us”, Bala advised.
Governor Bala while stating that the state government has money to continue with the contractors added that “President Muhammadu Buhari has given us money, and that is why we though we should continue with you, but it doesn’t mean that we should be shortchanged”.
The Governor who pledged to respect the contractors vowed not compromise, adding that “regardless of what happened in the past, we want to move forward, we will assure the people of Bauchi state that we will not have abandoned projects”.
