New Telegraph

Debt: Contractors protest at finance ministry

Thousands of local contractors yesterday besieged Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning to press for release of their outstanding payment which they claimed spanned between five and 12 years.

 

With a chant of “Zainab pay us, you paid your contractor husband”, aggrieved contractors barricaded entrance to the Ministry of Finance, thus disrupting vehicular traffic at the popular Federal Secretariat Road.

 

The contractors claimed they executed various contracts across Ministries, Department and Agencies of government (MDAs) of Federal Government and had yet to be paid for many years. Among other claims, they alleged billions of naira had been approved and released by the Presidency to settle the liabilities, but the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, refused to settle the indebtedness.

 

 

The Publicity Secretary of the Local Contractors of Nigeria, Prince Dandy Rowland, told journalists that over 5,000 local contractors affected by non-payment of executed contracts were passing through severe life threatening situations and hunger.

 

He said some of the contractors died in the process, unable to secure the payment, while their families are still going through anguish. He added that government needed to release the payment to enable these contractors liquidate their debts.

 

Rowland said: “We are once again calling on the Presidency to mandate the Minister of Finance to pay local contractors now or else we will remain in this protest and declare hunger strike.

 

“Federal Government did not waste time to commission the projects we executed with borrowed money as its achievements, but now it is taking government decades to do verification for our payment. Federal Government cannot fool us forever.

 

“Therefore, FG must pay us now, because if the reverse had been the case, if we had collected government money without executing the projects, government would have arrested and jailed us.

 

This is corruption of the highest order and it is unacceptable.” He stated that due to the delay, many local contractors have died, while others have been hospitalized and cannot afford medical bills.

 

“Our children have dropped out of school. Many among us are facing criminal charges in various courts across the nation for funds borrowed which they are unable to pay back. “Some have fled their homes for fear of being attacked by creditors and some have lost their homes to banks and creditors.”

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