Contractors handling federal projects across the country have accused the government of deliberately stalling works through funding delays.
They insisted that failure to disburse funds has not only forced them to abandon sites but also caused them to incur more losses.
Speaking on behalf of the contractors, Austin Emegwagwa claimed that they were last paid in October 2024.
“The new payment method is referred to as bottom-up, and unfortunately, the bottom-up for November to March has not been paid. Up till now, the releases for the 2024 budget to MDAs is not up to 50 percent,” he lamented.
He said contractors have abandoned sites except those handling the Lagos-Calabar coastal road, whom he claimed were even being paid in advance. “We have never experienced this long delay since the dawn of the current democratic dispensation. Contractors were paid last in October 2024. So, from November to date, there has been a long wait for payment,” he stressed.
Emegwagwa lamented the payment delay, insisting that the government’s action has left some doubts about the 2025 budget. He wondered how the FG would convince Nigerians that it could fund the 2025 budget when releases for the 2024 budget were not up to 40 percent.
He said most contractors were tempted to believe that the government was deliberately starving them of funds even though their projects were at advanced stages of completion, adding, “This is a disincentive to most of us who have committed resources on the projects we are handling.”
He alleged that the government was solely focusing attention on the Lagos-Calabar coastal road, claiming that payment for the project had been going on seamlessly and wondered why other contractors were being owed.
He lamented that, in spite of subsidy removal, excessive borrowing and the devaluation of the Naira, the government was still not willing to honour its contractual obligations to contractors, noting that, “most of us are on the verge of going bankrupt because we borrowed money from banks at huge interest rates. The President should kindly come to our aid.”
Emegwagwa, however, appealed to President Bola Tinubu to direct the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, to urgently pay the contractors in the spirit of this month, during which the two major religious adherents, Muslims and Christians, are observing Ramadan and Lent, respectively.