Why indigenous contractors fail

Speaking with Daily Trust in Abuja recently, Ofoegbu said the contract syndrome has made even the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) to jettison its core mandate of road maintenance to become a contract awarding body.He said, “We met as a group to reengineer parastatals and ministries. I made presentations on roads and housing. “Part of […]

Speaking with Daily Trust in Abuja recently, Ofoegbu said the contract syndrome has made even the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) to jettison its core mandate of road maintenance to become a contract awarding body.
He said, “We met as a group to reengineer parastatals and ministries. I made presentations on roads and housing.
“Part of the outcome of the meeting we held in Jos is what we call today FERMA. FERMA wasn’t supposed to be a contract awarding agency.
“FERMA was supposed to also encourage direct participation of Nigerians. It was supposed to set up road gangs in different communities like we used to have road camps during the colonial days.
“Road camps made up of young engineers, young boys who went to trade centres. Not only will they maintain the roads, they can also build feeder roads. What’re most important in this country today are the feeder roads.
“If you have adequate feeder roads, a man travelling from Ore to maybe Shagamu doesn’t need to come to the expressway and risk his life.
“He will go through the feeder road quietly to Shagamu. And a farmer who has produce will use that road to bring it out to a point where it will be taken off him and he goes back to his farm,” the professor explained.
According to him, “We have this contract syndrome and the best contracts are beneficial when they’re awarded to big companies – I’m a minister, I’ll go and attract a company.
“That company will start doing contracts for me. When I leave office, I’ll become the chairman. Go check how all the foreign construction companies came into this country.”
Another reason for failure of local engineers, Ofoegbu said stems from get-rich-quick desire. “An indigenous engineer  is awarded a contract to build a road.
“Maybe he’s given initial mobilization for machinery of N200 million. He first goes to buy himself a Rolls-Roycer.
“He buys a new house in Ikoyi/Abuja, begins to build a house in…takes a chieftaincy title before he comes to work on the road.
“Because the governor who gave him the road was maybe his classmate or maybe he sponsored him [the governor] to win election,” the professor explained.
He lamented that much of the erosion problem in eastern Nigeria was caused by an indigenous construction company owned by very prominent Nigerians.
“They cut up the road, collected the money and allowed erosion to eat up the whole place. We’ve not been able to recover from the erosion created after the [civil] war. Why? Because government decided to patronize indigenous construction companies.
“You just cut it up with bulldozers, walk away, collect the money and become a millionaire and everybody is singing your praise in the country. That’s the major problem we have with giving contracts to our own people,” he concluded.