A construction firm, Zeka Global Company Limited, which undertook the construction of Calabar-Odukpani dual carriageway, has described claims it received N42 billion as contract fee for the building of the dual carriageway as false and baseless.
A director with the construction firm, Ibrahim Tiamiyu, disclosed the contract was not even half of the figure being bandied.
“The actual cost of the project was N17 billion,” he said.
Offering insight into how the company was engaged by the Cross River State government,
Tiamiyu said: “We came into the picture when other contractors were asking for cut-throat fees to handle the project and the government could not muster that. What Zeka did for the Cross River State was more or less a direct labour service which went a long way in reducing the cost of constructing the road. “The award or engagement letter issued to us was to function as a ‘service provider’ under a direct labour arrangement with the state infrastructure company, Infra-Cross. It was on the basis of our rich profile that Zeka was engaged. In fact, some contractors had charged the government about N60 billion before the immediate past governor had to look in our direction that we should come in as a service provider.”
The director lamented that in spite of their diligence and commitment to the completion of the project they were yet to be fully paid.
“The company is still being owed a balance of N2 billion. This is besides debts owed the company from projects executed outside the dual carriageway for the state government. It is unfortunate the purveyors of the phantom N42 billion contract sum were less concerned about fact-checking with the relevant ministries and agencies of government before speculating on the contract sum,” he said.
The company, which began construction in 2020, finally completed and delivered the project in 2023. On some failed portions of the road, Tiamiyu disclosed, “normally in road construction, there is a period, called defects liability, where the road is open to traffic during a six months period to observe its behaviour. If there is a defect during the six months, the contractor returns to site to fix or address whatever the defects are. So, it is not right to say the road has failed. In fact, it is mischievous to insinuate as such.”
According to the director, there are a lot of factors that could have caused a road to fail.
“The portion of the road that gave way was later discovered to be sitting on shale materials. That was what caused that particular portion to give way.
And with what we have noticed, we are waiting for the rains to stop so that we could return to the site to get it fixed, despite that, the shale materials we found were not captured in the Bill of Engineering Measurement and Evaluation.”
Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Works, Godwin Akeke; Director, Civil, Ministry of Works, Desmond Ewa, and Pius Okpa, director, Inditek Partners and Consultant to the Cross River State Ministry of Works all agreed, “the issue on the portion of the road that gave way is not about the competence of Zeka as a company that handled the work.
“There were underlying issues which were not foreseen such as underground seepage of water, presence of amco pipes buried under the ground and prevalence of borrow pits.
“If these were not foreseen and were not part of the contractor’s design and schedule, the contractor would not handle them because they were not covered under the terms of engagement. So, there will be a need for variation because he did not know that underground seepage was taking place there. Against this backdrop, the portion of the road was likely to give way. However, since it is still within the defects liability period the contractor will go back to site but with variation in the contract. The issue of competence does not arise.”
People are making insinuations simply because it is an indigenous contractor and they will do everything to discredit them.We will greatly appreciate it if the government can pay us the outstanding balance of N2 billion due to the company to help quicken our return to site to fix the failed portion.”