A construction firm owned by Special Adviser to the President on Public Communication, Dr. Doyin Okupe,Value Trust Investment Company Limited, wants N5billion from the Benue State Government as damages for alleged breach of contract.<\/p>\n
Dr. Okupe\u00a0 has come under attack for allegedly allowing the firm\u00a0 abandon a rural road contract awarded to it in 2004 by the state government\u00a0 after collecting a huge sum of money has filed a suit to that effect at the Benue State High Court, Makurdi.<\/p>\n
In the suit filed on its\u00a0 behalf byLagos lawyer, Mr. Festus Keyamo, the company is praying the court to declare that it is entitled to a review of the contract sum from the initial N2.3billion to N6.6billion in view of an astronomical rise in costs and that in the alternative,it should be compensated with N5billion damages.<\/p>\n
It is also asking the court to compel the state government pay it the sum of\u00a0 N358,762,934.90 for the job it has done on the road.<\/p>\n
In the statement of claims, the plaintiff averred, among others, that \u201cIt could not execute the contract within the time stipulated in the contract because the sub-contractors appointed by the defendants failed to carry out and execute the jobs sub-contracted to them.<\/p>\n
\u201cApart from the defect of the sub-contractors appointed by the defendants, the delay of the defendants in handing over the sites as stipulated in the contract agreement also caused inability of the plaintiff in executing the contract within the time stipulated in the contract agreement even though it was the desire of the plaintiff to execute the contract within the time frame stated in the contract agreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could not commence work immediately after the handover of the sites to it in August because the rain had started and the sites were not suitable to start construction at that time.<\/p>\n
\u201cDesirous of completely executing the contract, it applied for an extension of the completion time and the Defendants approved same vide a letter dated the 23rd of January, 2007. The period was extended to the 30th of April, 2007. A copy of the letter dated 23rd January, 2007 is hereby pleaded.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe defendants acknowledged in a letter dated 23rd January, 2007 entitled: \u201cTo Whom it May Concern\u201d, that at the time the extension of time was granted, the plaintiff had completed 40% of the contract.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Keyamo said yesterday that \u201cthere was no time Dr. Doyin Okupe or any of his companies took money from the Benue State Government and \u201cvanished into thin air,\u201d as has been portrayed in many quarters.<\/p>\n
No date has been fixed for the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A construction firm owned by Special Adviser to the President on Public Communication, Dr. Doyin Okupe,Value Trust Investment Company Limited, wants N5billion from the Benue State Government as damages for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n