The Federal Government has fired Chinese construction giant, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), from the 43-kilometre Port Harcourt–Aba road project over what it described as chronic incompetence and poor performance.
Minister of Works, David Umahi, announced the termination after an inspection visit on Sunday, saying the company had consistently ignored over 20 warnings and allowed the road to deteriorate despite receiving billions in payments.
“Today is the 19th of October, the Controller reported to me that the Aba-bound bound of Port Harcourt-Aba Road being constructed by CCECC is at the verge of total collapse.
This job 43 kilometres from Port Harcourt to Aba, is an inherited project and since we came on board, we have been doing everything, putting funds to see how we can finish one carriage way.
And so we started working with CCECC on this one carriage way using concrete to do the inner shoulder and the outer shoulder so as to ensure the road lasts while they are using the Asphalt to do the 7.3 carriage way.
And their method of construction has been a very serious source of concern, where you will do binder for over a stretch of 30 kilometres and you are not putting wearing. We have issued warnings to CCECC more than 20 times, and we have told them the implications of putting binder without doing a shoulder and without wearing.”
Umahi said the Federal Government has now withdrawn the contract and will hand it over to a competent indigenous contractor to complete the project.
“And I want the press to capture the failure of a road that the federal government has used taxpayers’ money to pay for. And CCECC has consistently refused to obey all the instructions. I have been here more than seven times. If you get to Port Harcourt end, which they did about two years or thereabouts, the entire road has almost totally failed.”
The Minister, visibly angered, said the company will face stiff penalties, including a 14-day ultimatum to fix the binder at its own cost or risk the shutdown of all its projects across Nigeria.
“The site handled by CCECC should issue them a 14-day notice of termination of this job, and I want this directive to go very wide. After 14 days they fail to mill out the binder and replace it properly… If they don’t do that, I will shut down all their projects in Nigeria. I will do that.”
Umahi added that the government will make public all the warnings issued to CCECC and may arrest those in charge if the directive is ignored.
“If from tomorrow they don’t get to start amending this, I will come back and arrest the Chinese people who are on this project because they have taken the money, and they have to maintain these places.
“I was here three weeks ago. I begged them to maintain this mess; they did, and they didn’t do anything about it. Now it is developing, and very soon vehicles will start falling, and then people will start dying, and nobody will call them. So if they don’t do it, I will get them arrested.”
