Why Julius Berger’s Abuja-Kaduna road contract was terminated-Minister

The Minister of Works, Engr. David Umahi, yesterday clarified the federal government’s decision to terminate the contract awarded to Julius Berger by the previous administration for the rehabilitation of Section One of the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano Dual Carriageway. Tacitly rebutting some insinuations about the revocation of the contract, the minister stated that the action was purely based […]

The Minister of Works, Engr. David Umahi, yesterday clarified the federal government’s decision to terminate the contract awarded to Julius Berger by the previous administration for the rehabilitation of Section One of the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano Dual Carriageway.

Tacitly rebutting some insinuations about the revocation of the contract, the minister stated that the action was purely based on the federal government’s principled stance, after Julius Berger’s recalcitrance on cost, as well as its abandonment of the critical project.

Similarly, the minister explained how Infiouest International Limited won the contract for the same project, stating that Julius Berger had refused to take advantage of a right of first refusal (ROFR) given to it by the government when the process for the re-award of the project was initiated by his ministry.

The minister made the clarifications in an exclusive chat with Daily Trust yesterday in his office Abuja.

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He also used the opportunity to clarify the controversy surrounding the name of the new company handling Section One, of the Abuja-Kaduna road.

Engr. Umahi said: “The termination (of the contract of Julius Berger) was based on non-compliance with the reviewed cost, scope and terms, stoppage of work and refusal to remobilise to the site after this (works) ministry had directed it”.

He said that the company had asked for an upward review of the cost of the project to a level that was beyond what the federal government believe was sensible for execution of same.

According to him, the company had demanded for a review to raise the cost of rehabilitation of the 165.5 kilometres’ Section One of the road project to N2.3 billion per kilometre. “So, after more than nine months of negotiation, and repeated efforts to get Julius Berger to mobilise back to site, we had to terminate the contract”, the minister stressed.

He said the company shrugged off an invitation to it to join in the bid process for re-awarding the contract after it was reopened.

The various actions of the company, he said, informed the decision to proceed with the award process, through which Infiouest International Limited was the selected bidder for the award.

The contract for the rehabilitation of the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano dual carriageway, which was divided into three sections, was awarded to Julius Berger on the 20th of December 2017, and flagged off by the then Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, at an initial sum of N155.75bn on 18th June 2018. Sections II (Kaduna-Zaria) and III (Zaria-Kano) were partially completed and handed at the twilight of the Buhari administration.

While the Kaduna-Zaria section has been completed and the Zaria-Kano section is virtually completed, the Abuja-Kaduna section recorded less than 30 per cent progress in nearly seven years.

The Works Ministry had for almost 15 months been in talks with Julius Berger in order to reach an agreeable position on the project but to no avail.

On company’s name

Senator Umahi noted that the company which was awarded the Abuja-Kaduna Road contract, INFIOUEST INTERNATIONAL LIMITED, was a duly registered company, but that in the course of an application for land at the Abuja Geographic Information System (AGIS), in 2010, the name of the company was wrongly captured as, INFIQUEST INTERNATIONAL LIMITED, on the land allocation papers. He added that the company promptly pointed out the error to the management of AGIS, but it was never corrected.

The minister further stated that some persons, having noticed the error in the name of the company on a document, registered the wrongly captured name, INFIQUEST INTERNATIONAL LIMITED, with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) for allegedly fraudulent purposes.  In a document he shared with Daily Trust, INFIOUEST INTERNATIONAL LIMITED, later petitioned the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to deregister the company, citing all the court documents in that respect.