Minister of Works, Mr Mike Onolemen
The Federal Government had yesterday reacted to the threat that Bi-Courtney Consortium whose contract on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway was terminated may be heading to court in protest of the government’s decision. ‘Aso’ rock said it was ready to meet the company in court in order to defend its action.
The Minister of Works, Chief Mike Onolememen, who made this known in a press statement, said that all disengagement rules were observed as indicated in the agreement, and the consortium may not be having any case to make in court.
The minister said: “That concession was governed by law, the agreement is the governing instrument for that concession. In addition, the obligations of the parties were well spelt out in that agreement and at every point in time; every party was in the know as to what it was doing, either in conformity with the obligation in the agreement or in breach of those obligations.
“As a party, the government at a time had to address a letter to Bi-Courtney detailing the serial breaches it had committed on that particular concession and inviting the company to remedy those breaches given the days of grace as provided for in the agreement, failing which government did not have to invite them again to another meeting to terminate it.
“It is one of the rights given to government as a guarantor in the concession to terminate when certain things go wrong in the section prescribed in the agreement. And that is precisely what government did. So they are free to go to court and government will meet them in the law court.”
Reacting to Nigerian’s fear that RCC may thread the path Bi-Courtney , Onolememen said: “RCC is one of the contractors in the category that we are comfortable with. It is RCC that did most of the very important roads in this country that have continued to provide easy movement for people.
“As we speak they are engaged on the Benin-Ore-Sagamu dualisation and they are doing very well there. They are also on the Abuja-Lokoja dualisation project on Section II and they are in various parts of the country even in the Niger Delta.
“I perceive that what people may be referring to is consequent on the alignment. For example, if you move from Abuja to Lokoja, you will see pockets of FADAMA drainages where some water just sieve from the country. One of the problems I had to deal with as minister was to redo that entire alignment in terms of detailed designs and specifications.
“Because abinitio when that particular contract was awarded in 2006, it was awarded just like any other road. Nobody took into cognisance the peculiarities of that particular alignment, in fact it was one of the reasons I had to create a new department of geotechnic, material and control.”
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