Umahi laments shoddy jobs as he meets FG contractors

The Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, has said no existing federal road can last up to seven years.

He said the verdict was based on findings gathered during his recent road inspection tour crisscrossing the entire nation, noting that some roads are riddled with potholes and have deteriorated into “boreholes”.

The minister expressed his dissatisfaction over the poor jobs done by the contractors over the years while addressing contractors from the six geo-political zones at the ministry headquarters on Tuesday in Abuja.

He said, “There is no project being constructed right now in Nigeria that is going to last for seven years. The question is: are we going to be maintaining or reconstructing our roads every 10 years? That is what we have been doing. I travelled from Abuja to Benin City through Lokoja, all the stretches of the road are on contract, and ongoing, this is through the policy of the last administration but how much of the roads is motorable? I travelled through the roads myself and I shed tears for the kind of pain our people are going through.

“I spent 14 hours on the road, having started my journey at 10 am and got to Benin City at 2pm the next day and I was very happy I experienced the pains. President Tinubu said I must travel through all the projects so that I could brief him on my experience and tell him the truth. Unless Mr President does something about our procurement, his lofty intention to help this country may not totally be achieved.”