FCT: Senate talks tough over Apo-Karshi road

The Senate Committee on the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), on Tuesday, came down hard on the contractor handling the Karshi-Ara and extension of the Karshi-Apo road over failure to complete the project at the agreed time.

The Chairman of the committee, Smart Adeyemi, who led other members and Ministers of the FCT on oversight function, said it was a shame for an indigenous construction company to betray the trust of the FCT Administration (FCTA) and the National Assembly.

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The Apo-Karshi road project was awarded to M/S Kakatar CE. Big. Limited in 2011, with a completion period of 20 months.

He said the company had acknowledged the full funding of the project by the current FCTA, hence that there was no reason for the firm to depend on excuses instead of delivering the work as scheduled.

Adeyemi regretted that a contract that was awarded in 2011 had not been completed for several years, which he described as a failure.

According to him, the Apo-Karshi road always appears in FCT’s budget and is giving the senate headache, which must be looked into.

He asked the contractor to appear before the senate next week Thursday to explain.

He said, “If I submit the budget before the floor of the National Assembly, my colleagues will take me up on it. They will be asking questions and I don’t want to be confused.

“You should be ashamed of yourself and the company, the fund has been provided for the work, why excuse again?

“I remember when this job started and I had cause to come here in either 2013 or 2014, you gave us the same promise, when an indigenous company betrayed the trust, you justified why local firms should not be patronised.

“If I am the minister, I will revoke this job and ask them to refund the government, if you can’t do the job why should you accept it? There is no reason again to continue with the company.

The chief site engineer, Ezekiel Panam, who spoke on behalf of the managing director of the firm, said the delay in the project was due to the increase in the prices of items.

He said, “No administration has funded this project as the current one has done, part of the delay was funding, but since you came on board you settled it. This job was awarded in 2011, now prices of materials are not the same, so we are trying our best to deliver.”