Of Contractors And Completion Agenda
Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom last week called on all contractors handling his administration’s projects to double up and deliver on schedule.
The call was predicated on the fact that contractors have key roles to play in the success or otherwise of the Completion Agenda of the Udom Emmanuel administration.
Sometimes, contractors become double-edged swords that have made or marred progress in infrastructural development.
In many cases across Nigeria, the litany of abandoned projects could well be traced to failure by contractors. Infact, close to about half of all projects awarded in this country hardly get completed and that is fast becoming a tradition.
Given the high level of funds’ misappropriation, diversion and political patronages, most of them who failed to execute and deliver public funded projects have surprisingly evaded prosecution and are walking the streets free. Sometimes they have become the sacred cow that cannot be touched.
For example, a lot of abandoned projects that were being handled by the past administrations in Akwa Ibom are there like sore thumbs for all to see; thereby becoming subjects of talking points.
In some instances, contractors have turned into cogs in the wheel of progress over jobs awarded to them, and that is the irony of the Nigerian factor.
RELATED: Completing The Completion Agenda
Therefore it was timely and absolutely necessary for the Governor Emmanuel administration to sit them down as it did through the Commissioner for Works, Akparawa Ephraim Inyang-eyen, to emphasize the need for them to deliver jobs awarded to them on schedule and to specifications.
With his administration already on course to deliver the Completion Agenda, Governor Emmanuel is quite aware that contractors must be brought into line to work in synergy with government for the achievement of the Agenda.
However, having beamed the searchlight on contractors and their antecedents, it is natural to focus on the usual shortcomings of government in the execution of contracts. It has long been realised that most government officials are squarely responsible for abandoned projects as a result of bottlenecks.
Sometimes mobilization fees are neither paid in time to contractors nor the projects well-funded. As already said, government bureaucracy usually delays funds from being released as and when due.
We are very sure that the Completion Agenda is not only dear to the Governor Emmanuel administration, but the entire people of Akwa Ibom. It will therefore be unwise for bureaucracy or funding bottlenecks to be allowed to derail the programme.
It is not an overstatement to repeat it that the scorecard of this administration will be judged based on the Completion Agenda largely. Contractors and all the hands involved in the implementation must therefore be total in sync with the vision of Governor Udom Emmanuel in order to achieve the laudable projects as outlined by the administration since 2015.
