AKOR SYLVESTER-Abuja
The Minister of Works, Engr David Umahi has urged Nigerians to be patient, but to appreciate the laudable progress made by the present administration of President Bola Tinubu in ensuring effective and efficient road network and infrastructure across the country.
He said, “There is no way you expect some projects that have lasted 20 years, 18 years, 17 years to be done in one year”.
Umahi who reacted to the allegation credited to the House of Representatives Committee Chairman, Remi Oseni on “failure on read projects” at a press conference in Abuja, enjoined the lawmaker to try and understand the processes that are involved in the Ministry of Works.
He said the lawmaker’s position “is different from his procurement of fertilizer with his constituency project. They are two different things. You have to go to the field, you have to measure the project, you have to design it, and you have to do in-house procurement to look at it,” he further stated,
Continuing, Umahi said: “The method deployed in the construction will require you to do earthwork, to compact etc and if you don’t give it one month and you start to put stone base and asphalt, it will fail. So, those times that you are preparing the sub-grade, the sub-base, the base course before the pavement,what do you call it? It is not valued by people like him as progress made”
The Minister viewed the alleged outburst as a gross violation of parliamentary procedure for the Chairman of the House Committee on FERMA to invade the legislative powers of the Senate and House Committees on Works which have been carrying out oversight functions on the Ministry and are conversant with the achievements and challenges of the Ministry.
He criticized the Chairman of House Committee on FERMA for acting outside the legislative competence of his committee.
Highlighting the modest achievements of the ministry across the six geo-political zones, the Minister thanked President Tinubu for the unprecedented attention he has given in bridging the funding gap on the inherited projects.
He said, “What we did is that we used over 90% of these funds to keep all the inherited projects alive as directed by Mr. President because a project has to be alive and in the budget before you can look for funds to assist it to be completed. That’s what we’ve done, and so for those who are bitter that we have no projects to award to them, this is the reality.”
Umahi further said, “ Over 2,600 projects plus 330 supplementary projects and the new projects in 2024 is not a tea party. It requires commitment, and it requires dedication, which we are doing. We work on Saturday, Sundays, and public holidays, and somebody will say we are giving attention to less priority issues without mentioning those less priority issues that we are giving attention to.”
