Project, where the Hon. Minister of Transportation, Rt. Hon. Chibuike
Rotimi Amaechi expressed displeasure over the slow pace of work in which
he mounted pressure on the contractors (CCECC) to speed up the level of
work, the Minister has satisfactorily confirmed that there had been
remarkable improvement from the Ebute-Metta to Apapa axis of the
project.
Amaechi made this known to journalists, Friday, after he embarked on an
emergency inspection tour of the area alongside the Chairman of CCECC
Group, Zhao Dialong, who was on a visit to the country.
Amaechi said, “The last time we were here , I complained about the fact
that they were very slow and when their chairman told me that he was
coming to visit, I requested that we go to the project site and see how
far they have gone. There is remarkable progress from the day we came
till now. If you look at the roof work at the stations they have
completed it in just three to four days and If they continue with that
kind of speed, we should commence activity on the track in earnest. Mind
you, If we saw the number of workers that we saw today, we wouldn’t have
complained.”
Obviously, the contractors (CCECC), had between last Monday and today
redoubled their efforts by engaging more hands to speed up the pace of
work on the project and achieve the present level of job completion.
The Minister stressed, “we have been saying that they should add to
their manpower and deploy more equipment to commensurate with the volume
of work on ground.
“Going from here to the seaport, you’ll notice that there is a
remarkable improvement, this means that something was initially wrong
before the arrival of their chairman. I think, I need to meet with their
chairman and have a holistic conversation on how to move forward,”
Amaechi said.
He added that, although work was progressing steadily, much was not
really happening at the seaport at the moment but that the contractor
had assured that work would be intensified from the week ahead.
“Not much is happening at the seaport, but they have promised that from
next week they will intensify activities,” Amaechi said.
On whether the completion date of the project was still feasible,
considering the improvement noticed, the minister said, “As far as am
concerned (mentally), I’m almost out of Lagos. I’m critically trying to
focus on Kano-Kaduna, Ibadan – Ilorin, Ilorin to Minna and then to
Abuja.”
On the legal implications of not meeting up with the contractual terms
of the project in terms of its completion, Amaechi opined that rather
than looking at the law, emphasis should be on the practicality.
According to him, “the issue about non-completion of the project at the
stipulated timeframe is complex. The original time for the expiration of
the contract is May, but you see, they made an argument which you cannot
also fault, the argument they made was for additional works which gave
them up to six months, so if you add the six months to the May
expiration date, you are probably talking about next year. So, instead
of looking at the law, we should look more on practicality and compel
them to speed up the pace of work.”
On his part, the Chairman, CCECC Group, Zhao Dianlong, said changes in
locations affected completion of the stations.
He said, “We initially designed the projects so that the tracks will be
done simultaneously with the stations, we even planned to finish the
stations first, but we failed because of changes in location.”