The Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Dr. Steve Oru, has threatened to revoke the contracts for two of the nine skill acquisition centres in the Niger Delta over poor and delayed contract execution.
The two contracts are the Skill Acquisition Centre in Otuke, in Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State and the one for Ibeno in Akwa Ibom State awarded for N3.4bn.
The companies involved in the execution of the contract for the two centres are Stegis International Agencies Nigeria Limited, Salem Cat Limited, Enorasol International Limited, Ogbosite International Limited, El-Hanen Ventures Limited, Verity Concept Limited, Y.S. Associates Limited
The Otuoke Centre is expected to be a centre for the training of youths in oil and gas, maritime studies, Information and Communication Technology and how to assemble Ipad and mobile telephone on completion.
The Minister summoned the contracting firms to his office and lambasted them for shoddy execution of the contracts for the centres which according to him, lacked the appropriate supervision.
He told the two contractors that the level and quality of job done on the centres was too poor to be acceptable to the Federal Government.
The aggrieved minister issued a two-month ultimate to the contractor handling the Otuoke Centre and a six month period of grace to the firm handling the Ibeno Centre to complete the project or face the ire of the government.
Oru said that his observations during an inspection tour of the projects was rather disappointing and conflicted with the impression created that the projects were ready for commissioning.
He stressed the present state of the centre contradicted the impression created by the handover notes to him at the ministry that the Otuoke project would be commission soon.
“The impression we had before the visit were of Otuoke being ready for commissioning by the President at any given date and that this would be followed by the commissioning of Ibeno.
“But contrary to what we had on paper in the office here when I was being briefed, we were in state of shock by what we saw first at Otuoke which we thought was already fully completed.
“I think our findings show clearly poor execution of jobs by most contractors and untidiness of sites. We observed poor finishing of jobs and very poor supervision by consultants.
“So in totality it is a tail of poor job executions which resulted in disappointments and jobs being executed in substandard and unacceptable manner.”
The Minister who urged the contractors to take a second look at their approach to the execution of government jobs said that adequate attention would be given to ensure a thorough scrutiny of all previous certificates presented by the contractors as a corrective measure.
Speaking also, the Minister of State for Niger Delta Affairs, Mr. Dairus Ishaku, who also blamed the contractors for poor execution of the contracts, noted that the jobs would have been completed if the contractors had done what was expected of them.
He said that it was not conceivable for the contractors to cite the terrain and wheather as the reason for doing shoddy jobs.
However, the Chairman of one of the firms, Salem Cat, Mr Austin Uloho, who defended the firms attributed the delay in the execution of the contract to poor funding.
Source; http://www.punchng.com/news/skill-centre-fg-threatens-to-revoke-bayelsa-contract/
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