From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The House of Representatives has said it would probe the N2.4 trillion payment by the Federal Government to local contractors, who are protesting non-payment for jobs executed for the government.
Deputy Speaker, Benjamin Kalu, told journalists, after a meeting with the Association of Indigenous Contractors, said this was necessary to ascertain the identity of contractors, who were still protesting alleged non-payment of the contracts executed for the Federal Government.
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Kalu, chairman of the House Ad-hoc Committee on Budget implementation, directed the Accountant General of the Federation, Shamseldeen Ogunjimi to furnish the parliament with details of payments to contractors from the N2.4 trillion approved for that purpose.
The Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas, after a protest by local contractors over non-payment for projects executed for the government, had set up the Ad-hoc Committee on Budget Implementation to interface with the stakeholders.
The panel, chaired by Kalu, at a meeting with the contractors and the Federal Government officials, including the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, brokered a truce, resulting in agreement to pay 25 percent of the outstanding.
The deputy speaker, who disclosed that another meeting with the contractors and the government has been scheduled for October 5, said while the parliament is committed to ensuring that contractors get payment for job done, the latter must give the government value for money.
He said: “Today, the Ministry of Finance was represented by the legal adviser, and the Accountant General’s office was represented by the Director of Funds, as well as the Chief of Staff to the Accountant General, only because the Minister of Finance and the Accountant General were invited to the Villa to take care of issues. So, they apologised but monitored the session through the phone.
“During the appraisal, we were able to find out that from them the 25 percent of the payments as agreed have been done within the two weeks, and they also said nothing has been done about the cash back and the warrant for the remaining months that they complained about, but they accepted that on the issue of batch numbers, the Ministry and the Accountant General have complied in full, which means the batch number issue has been removed, 25 percent has been achieved within two weeks, and the cash back and warrant were not handled.
“We invited the bureaucrats to respond to that, and they said, yes, they have about N2.4 trillion that was approved for payment, and out of this amount, they have paid up, leaving only 160 billion unpaid out of N2.4 trillion. It is commendable by this government to have approved such an amount of money.”
But in addition, he stated that approval has been granted for the third issue, which was the warrant and cash backing of the remaining months, which they said has not been taken care of, that was at zero percent level. So, that also gladdened their hearts that the administration, beyond approving what they requested, which was May and June cash backing and warrants, the administration, through the Minister of Finance, has approved warrant and cash backing from May, June, July, August, even up to the current month of September.
“When they were asked for how much, they said they have about an extra N760 billion approved to take care of what is outstanding within this, in addition to the N2.4 trillion, which is bringing it to about N3.1 something trillion. “
Furthermore, Kalu noted that “one of the things I sent them with was my charge to the Accountant General’s office to give us the spreadsheet of those they have paid. We need to see how the government has paid N2.4 trillion, and see people who are still standing on the street saying that the government is not paying.
“How can we pay N2.4 trillion into the system and the same contractors are on the street? So, we want to verify and investigate to know whether these are the people who are paid, or the people who are claiming that they have worked.
“On the part of the government, we are putting the pressure on the government to pay up, but on their part, they should ensure that what the government is paying for is a job well done. The government is not paying for a piece of paper or a certificate of completion when the jobs are not done.
“We told them it would be wickedness to claim that a hospital has been built and lives have been lost because there is no hospital to attend to people; that schools have been built when students are learning under trees; that roads and farm roads, have been built when post-harvest destruction is still on the increase because there’s no way to bring those things down.”
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