Fashola set to Shame, Publish Names of Defaulting Contractors

The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has said his Ministry is contemplating publishing what he called “a blacklist” of defaulting contractors who fail to meet their own end of the bargain with the Federal Government.

The Minister said in addition to making their names public, the Ministry will also be making claims of time value for money.

Fashola stated this when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges, and Public Petition to testify on a petition leveled against his Ministry and Cartil Construction Limited by the Redeem Christian Church of God Christian Church, RCCG.

The RCCG had in a petition filed by one Pastor Niyi Adebanjo on behalf of the General Overseer, Pastor Enoch Adeboye and dated 9th February 2021, accused the Ministry of making payment to the tune of N151 million to Cartil Construction Limited for rehabilitation of the Ife- Ifewara Road in Osun State, which the Church said was constructed by it, as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR.

The RCCG, therefore, asked Cartil Construction Limited should be made to refund the money and have it returned to the government coffer.

The Church said, “If anyone is to be reimbursed for the rehabilitation of the road, it should be it and not the contractor”.

In his testimony, Fashola punctured all the claims contained the in petition.

He said it was false that payments were made between 2016 to 2018 for the construction of the road, hinting that part of why the road was abandoned between 2013 and 2017 was because there was no budgetary allocation for the project.

Fashola, however, explained that the contract for the road was awarded to Cartil Construction in December 2010 for N600 million as one of the several constituency projects executed under the Ministry of Works, five years before the Buhari administration.

He said based on Section 36 of the Public Procurement Act, the contractor was entitled to 15% as mobilization fee. He said the contractor initiated for the 15% and the then Minister graciously approved and paid Carti Construction Limited N 99.4 billion.

He said having moved to the site, the second payment of N52 million was made on the 29th of December, 2011; bringing the total to N151 million which according to him was erroneously claimed to have been paid in 2016 by RCCG.

Fashola gave Cartil Construction Limited a clean bill of health when he testified in its favour that it did not claim any money between 2016-2018 because as at that time the contract had already being terminated in 2015.

In his final submission, Fashola said the Ministry did nothing wrong, acted according to its mandate, and is not liable to the petition.

He said there was no proof that an unjust claim was made by the contractor or made by the Ministry and that there were no bases for the petition which bothers on falsehood and defamation.

Realizing the errors in his petition, the Petitioner, Pastor Adebanjo apologized on behalf of the General Overseer of RCCG to the Minister of Works, Babatunde Raji Fashola.

He also admitted that he has no evidence to back up claims that funds were released in 2011 to Cartil Construction Limited.

Reacting, Senator Smart Adeyemi, agreed with the Minister that there is a need to strengthen the laws with stiffer punishment for erring contractors.

He said RCCG should be commended for drawing attention to high-level corruption in contract awards in the country.