The Minister of Works, Engr. Nweze David Umahi, has reacted to a trending statement credited to the Chairman, House Committee on FERMA, Hon. Engr. Aderemi Abasi Oseni.
The Minister views this attack as an inconceivable embarrassment demeaning to his person and the Federal Ministry of Works as neither he nor his Permanent Secretary was in such a meeting where the said Chairman of House Committee on FERMA was said to be addressing the Honourable Minister of Works.
At a news conference held at the Ministry’s headquaters on Monday 28th October 2024, the Minister stated that it was no doubt akin to darkening counsel without knowledge for the Honourable Chairman, House Committee on FERMA to vilify the him over the bad state of Federal roads inherited from previous administrations numbering over 2,604 without deferring to the records of various interventions made by the Renewed Hope administration which have made a great difference in the public transport trajectory of Nigeria.
The Honourable Minister has chosen to refrain from joining issues with the said House Committee Chairman on FERMA because of the respect he has for the hallowed institution of the National Assembly, the Senate President and the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives.
“For the respect of Mr. Speaker, and of course the Senate President and the National Assembly that I belong to, I will refrain myself from joining issues with him. He said, I have failed, and if a blind man is to assess you, your guess is as good as mine because if he has no knowledge of anything, then his knowledge becomes his god so I will not join issues with him”, Umahi said.
Umahi views the action of addressing him as if he was before the House Committee on FERMA as deliberate, ill-motivated, misguided, self-serving and nothing but a vicious propaganda typical of a proxy representing the interest of nonconforming contractors who have constituted themselves into adversaries against the Federal Ministry of Works for insisting on best practices in project pricing, variation on price and foreign exchange differentials.
There is no doubt that the vituperations of the House Committee Chairman on FERMA were from the abundance of his heart, but to say that all the roads across the country have failed for the failure of the Honourable Minister of Works to address the existing road with the resources approved or for his failure to deploy the N300 billon supplementary fund approved for him or that he is concentrating his energy on the less priority issues shows that the House Committee Chairman on FERMA either has little knowledge of the volume of road infrastructure deficits inherited from successive administrations and cost requirements for road construction or that he deliberately refused, ignored and neglected to appreciate the Renewed Hope administration’s intervention milestones or he is playing to the gallery on the prompting of the nonconforming contractors.
He said,” And let me say to him that the projects Mr. President inherited were a total of 2,604 projects. As of May 29, 2023, the total cost was N13 trillion. That’s what the President inherited and a debt to contractors of N1.6 trillion. And when you look at the variation by the reason of the subsidy removal, by the reason of the floating of the dollar, you’ll find out that if you review all these projects, you will see that you will get over N19 trillion for the total ongoing projects. Mr. President did what no other President has done. He manifested all the projects in the 2024 budget with the hope to give him time to look for resources, including loans, to do these projects. I wasn’t in that meeting where the Honourable House member was said to be addressing me, and there is no way I was going to complain of resources to fix our roads because Mr. President has given very special attention to the Federal Ministry of Works. He has paid so much attention to the sufferings of Nigerians vis-a-vis the road situation, and the ministry is not the only ministry in Nigeria. Mr. President has a lot of other challenging situations and competing demands, yet he has given priority attention to the Ministry of Works”
He noted that the utterances of the Chairman, were no doubt aimed at inciting the public against the government that brought him on board as it is a common sense that a person of his level and profession ought to know the method statement required of road construction.
He said,” there is no way you will expect that some projects that have lasted 20 years, 18 years, 17years to be done in one year.And if he says he is an engineer, he should try and understand the processes involved in the ministry of Works. It’s different from his procurement of fertilizers with his constituency project, they are two different things.
Furthermore, the Honourable Minister views it as a gross violation of parliamentary procedure for the Chairman of the House Committee on FERMA to invade the legislative powers of the Senate and House Committees on Works which have been carrying out oversight functions on the Ministry and are conversant with the achievements and challenges of the Ministry. He carpeted the Chairman of House Committee on FERMA for acting outside the legislative competence of his committee.
Highlighting the modest achievements of the ministry across the six Geo-Political zones, the Honourable Minister thanked the President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the unprecedented attention he has given in bridging the funding gap on the inherited projects.
He said, “What we did is that we used over 90% of these funds to keep all the inherited projects alive as directed by Mr. President because a project has to be alive and in the budget before you can look for funds to assist it to be completed. That’s what we’ve done, and so for those who are bitter that we have no projects to award to them, this is the reality.”
He further said, “ Over 2,600 projects plus 330 supplementary projects plus the new projects in 2024 is not a tea party. It requires commitment, and it requires dedication, which we are doing. We work on Saturday, Sundays, and Public Holidays, and somebody will say we are giving attention to less priority issues without mentioning those less priority issues that we are giving attention to”