Presidency bids to combat abandoned projects menace

Okays contract continuity bill

Senate pushes for infrastructure funds

IT has been the dubious practice in Nigeria for a new government to discontinue projects initiated by its predecessors.he But the Federal Government is now taking steps to bring the abandoned project
popularly known as white elephant syndrome to an end.

Through a Project Continuity Bill, which it is set to present to the National Assembly soon, the Executive arm of government wants a legal framework that would make it mandatory for any new government to finish the projects initiated by its previous administration.

The Guardian learnt that the bill to be sent to the National Assembly by President Goodluck Jonathan soon, aims to commit governments at all levels to projects and policies embarked upon by their predecessors.

Among others, it is the plan of government to use the bill to ensure that its national economic transformation plan - Vision 20: 2020 - does not go the way of similar policies initiated by past governments in the country.

To facilitate the speedy passage of the bill at the National Assembly, Minister and Deputy Chairman of the National Planning Commission, Dr. Shamsudeen Usman, has opened talks with the Legislature.

Shamsudeen, who was at the National Assembly at the weekend, called for policy continuity in planning as a means of ensuring that the nation’s economic aspirations were achieved.

The National Assembly is also stepping up efforts to make the nation’s deplorable roads motorable.

Apart for pushing for the declaration of a state of emergency on the road sector, the National Assembly is set to create an Infrastructural Fund to address the funding gap in the construction and repairs of roads, railways, airports, and waterways.

Chairman, Senate Committee on Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA), Ayogu Eze, told journalists in Abuja at the weekend that the National Assembly is worried about the poor state of transport infrastructure in the country.

At a meeting with the House of Representatives Committee on National Planning and Economic Development, Shamsudeen urged the legislators to save the country from wastages by passing the Development Planning and Project Continuity Bill 2010.

The minister, who noted that lack of legal backing for long-term development plans was affecting continuity in planning and economic growth initiatives, recalled that the bill was part of the recommendations of the Vision 20: 2020 document.

He stressed the critical role of the National Assembly in achieving the goals of the plan, and sought their cooperation in the implementation of the initiative.

Shamsudeen said: “We have sought to address that with the draft of the bill that is coming to the National Assembly. Clearly, we need your support on this to get it approved and passed. During the process of documenting Nigeria’s Vision 20:2020, one of the recommendations was that we need to protect this Vision with a legislation so that it will not be set aside. We must enact a law that will institutionalise and legalise planning. That is the experience in countries such as India that had been consistent in implementing their development plans.”

He said the commission was working towards the review of the law establishing the Centre for Management Development (CMD) Act to strengthen its capacity to develop the country.

The committee chairman, Bethel Amadi pledged its support for the Executive and assured the minister that the members would work with the National Planning Commission in the formulation and implementation of economic development programmes.

While stressing the need to create a funding architecture that would address the problem of our roads, Eze said the National Assembly would put a legal framework in place to create a fund that would synergize with the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) to make Nigerian roads motorable.

He said: “There is no way we can attract foreign investors with roads ridden with potholes. We are thinking of being a great nation by 2020, we must begin to think and behave like a country that wants to be great. All over the world, everybody is talking about funding infrastructure.”

On the proposed 2nd Niger Bridge, Eze said the Senate was working to ensure that it is constructed, adding that the infrastructure arm of the World Bank would provide a facility for the project.

He said the Senate wants to have a bridge with a rail track in the middle to connect with the track joining Benin City in Edo State to Port Harcourt in Rivers State. “We will give the project the support it deserves by ensuring that funds are provided, we would also ensure that we get facility for the project from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).”

Meanwhile, the Senate Committee on Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has vowed to investigate the award of contract for the rehabilitation and expansion of the outer Northern Expressway Lot 11 in Abuja.

The panel’s chairman, Smart Adeyemi, reacted to the alleged inflation of the contract to N16 billion by the CGC Engineering Limited, the Chinese company, which won the contract.

The contract is for the construction of the left and right service carriageway, an additional lane on the main carriage way and the rehabilitation of the existing Kubwa Expressway, totalling 20.3 kilometres. It was awarded to the company in June 2009 for N81.9 billion while the second part of the road project worth N19.5 billion was awarded to Dantata & Sawoe, a local firm, at N66.6 billion.

Reacting to the alleged additional cost of N16 billion for only 800 metres, Adeyemi said the contractor might be summoned over the issue and if found guilty, would be required to refund the difference.

“You cannot defend the N16 billion difference. We are going to summon you (contractor) with the FCT Ministry and if we discover that the contract was inflated, you will be made to refund the money to the government,” he said.

With about 70 per cent of the work completed, the company told the committee that due to lack of funding and other sundry challenges, it would not meet the November target and pleaded to be given March 2012 as the new deadline.

The firm’s Construction Manager, Jiang Kieng, said the decision to import materials was due to its discovering that even the acclaimed locally produced ones came from outside Nigeria.

Kieng said the government approved the firm’s request to import the materials.


Source: http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=65342:presidency-bids-to-combat-abandoned-projects-menace&catid=1:national&Itemid=559