New Telegraph

BPP: Why we awarded Abuja-Kaduna road to Julius Berger

The Director General of Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Mamman Ahmadu, has said the project for the rehabilitation of Abuja-Kaduna road and other critical projects were awarded to Julius Berger because communities where they are sighted wanted the company to handle the projects.
The critical projects include the Second Niger Bridge, Abuja-Kaduna, Lagos-Ibadan road construction.
The DG disclosed this at an investigative hearing with the House of Representatives committee on works.
He, however, said the BPP was not satisfied with the performance of Julius Berger (Nig), Plc, on the Abuja-Kaduna road project so far following inspection.
The DG said: “I’m not happy, with the work so far,” explaining that “there was an evaluation of the three projects and based on quality, Julius Berger was given the contract.
“Quality is very important, so specification and quality requirement was considered.
“In our review where we thought Julius Berger priced a particular material expensive, we reduced it.
“Infact at a time this project came, Julius Berger said if they were allowed to do the road that they will ensure road maintenance for 30 years and minimum maintenance for a few years thereafter. ”
He said: “The National Assembly should also take note, you have three blocks here and the ones built by Julius berger, see how they are still clean, and the ones built by others are going bad and need maintenance.”
Speaking further on the projects, the DG said: “The Lagos-Ibadan project, was conceived as public-private partnership, but no performance from the concesssioner. It was awarded during Jonathan’s time and because of poor performance, it was reawarded.
“The Second Niger bridge, likewise started as a BPP project, but failed to perform and it was converted to a contract financed by government and started by Julius berger.
“Abuja- Kaduna-Kano road was initiated to open competitive bidding and was later given out too. It was much later because budgetary provisions was not coming regularly and government took it up to finance.”
But the Works Committee, led by Hon.Abubakar Kabir, had expresssed worries over delay in the completion of Abuja-Kaduna, Lagos-Ibadan projects, awarded by the Federal Government since 2013.

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