The Minister of Works, Engr. Nweze David Umahi, in response to a trending statement addressed to him, over the state of roads in Nigeria and which was credited to the Chairman, House Committee on FERMA, Engr. Aderemi Abasi Oseni, has termed it, an unprovoked attack demeaning to his person and the Federal Ministry of Works.
According to a statement signed by Orji Uchenna Orji, Special Adviser (Media) to the Minister, neither the Minister nor the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, was present at the meeting where the Chairman of House Committee on FERMA was said to have addressed him.
In a news conference that took place on Monday, 28th October 2024, the Minister stated that, “it was no doubt akin to darkening counsel without knowledge” for the Chairman, House Committee on FERMA to vilify him over the bad state of Federal roads inherited from previous administrations numbering over 2,604 without deferring to the records of various interventions made by the Renewed Hope administration which have made a great difference in the public transport trajectory of Nigeria.
However, Umahi stated, that he has chosen to refrain from joining issues with the House Committee Chairman on FERMA because of his respect for the institution of the National Assembly, the Senate President and the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives.
In his words, “For the respect of Mr. Speaker, and of course the Senate President and the National Assembly that I belong to, I will refrain myself from joining issues with him.
“He said, I have failed, and if a blind man is to assess you, your guess is as good as mine because if he has no knowledge of anything, then his knowledge becomes his god so I will not join issues with him.”
Umahi viewed the action of addressing him in his absent but as though he was present before the House Committee on FERMA as deliberate, ill-motivated, misguided, and self-serving.
According to him, “it is a vicious propaganda typical of a proxy representing the interest of nonconforming contractors, who have constituted themselves into adversaries against the Federal Ministry of Works, for insisting on best practices in project pricing, variation on price and foreign exchange differentials.
“There is no doubt that the vituperations of the House Committee Chairman on FERMA were from the abundance of his heart, but to say that all the roads across the country have failed, because of the failure to address the existing road with the resources approved, or failure to deploy the N300 billon supplementary fund approved, or concentrating all my energy on the less priority issues shows that the House Committee Chairman on FERMA, either has little knowledge of the volume of road infrastructure deficits inherited from successive administrations, and cost requirements for road construction, or that he deliberately refused, ignored and neglected to appreciate the Renewed Hope administration’s intervention milestones or he is playing to the gallery on the prompting of the nonconforming contractors.”
He said, “And let me say to him that the projects Mr. President inherited were a total of 2,604 projects. As of May 29, 2023, the total cost was N13 trillion. That’s what the President inherited and a debt to contractors of N1.6 trillion. And when you look at the variation by the reason of the subsidy removal, by the reason of the floating of the dollar, you’ll find out that if you review all these projects, you will see that you will get over N19 trillion for the total ongoing projects.
“Mr. President did what no other President has done. He manifested all the projects in the 2024 budget with the hope to give him time to look for resources, including loans, to do these projects. I wasn’t in that meeting where the House member was said to be addressing me, and there is no way I was going to complain of resources to fix our roads because Mr. President has given very special attention to the Federal Ministry of Works.
“He has paid so much attention to the sufferings of Nigerians vis-a-vis the road situation, and the Ministry is not the only Ministry in Nigeria. Mr. President has a lot of other challenging situations and competing demands, yet he has given priority attention to the Ministry of Works”
Umahi noted that the utterances of the Chairman, House Committee on FERMA were no doubt aimed at inciting the public against the government that brought him on board as it is a common sense that a person of his level and profession ought to know the method statement required of road construction.
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. And if he says he’s an engineer, he should try and understand the processes that are involved in the Ministry of Works. It’s 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 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”
Speaking further, Umahi said that, it 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 carpeted 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 the President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed 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.”
He further said that, “Over 2,600 projects plus 330 supplementary projects plus 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.”
