Contractors barricade agric ministry, demand minister, perm sec sack

A group of contractors Wednesday blocked the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Minister’s entrance demanding the payment of N17 billion debt incurred under the 2018 contractual projects. But the ministry is yet to respond to their allegations. They were also demanding the sack of the Minister Alhaji Mohammed Sabo Nanono and the Permanent […]

A group of contractors Wednesday blocked the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Minister’s entrance demanding the payment of N17 billion debt incurred under the 2018 contractual projects.

But the ministry is yet to respond to their allegations.

They were also demanding the sack of the Minister Alhaji Mohammed Sabo Nanono and the Permanent Secretary, Dr Abdulkadir Mu’azu over their failure to pay for the contracts executed under the 2018 fiscal year.

On Monday, the contractors also threatened to take legal action against the ministry over the N17 billion debt.

They were demanding the sack of the two captains of the agric ministry because despite the promises by the minister, Sabo Nanono and Permanent Secretary Dr Mu’azu Abdulkadir, they were yet to be paid.

Their leader, Daniel Mozie stressed that the actual sum the ministry owed the contractors who participated in the 2018 project was about N17 billion and not N48 billion as alleged in the petition against former Permanent Secretary Dr Umar Bello adding that the N48 billion covers 2017-2019 liability.

The contractors accused Dr Abdulkadir, the current perm sec who is the accounting officer of the ministry for distorting the laid down payment system- a situation they said affected their payment.

They also said the minister, Sabo Nanono failed to solve their problem adding that he went ahead with the 2019 procurement without paying that of 2018.

The ministry has not responded yet. Its director of information, Theodore Ogaziechi did not pick calls put through or respond to text message seeking his reaction.