By Bukola Badmus, Abeokuta
President Bola Tinubu has directed an immediate interface with major cement manufacturers in the country over rising price of cement, says the Honouranle Ministef of Works, Sen. Engr. David Umahi, CON.
Speaking to journalists Saturday after the latest round of inspection section 3 of the ongoing rehabilitation of East-West highway, the Honourable Minister disclosed that President was seriously concerned with current situation of increase in cement prices.
Sen. Umahi observed about the current price of cement that “some are still selling sometimes, you know, 10,000 naira sometimes 12,000 naira; and so on and so forth.”
He added that “So it’s not healthy for us. So Mr. President has directed that we should interface with them, look at their problems, and then see who is, you know, ripping off Nigerians and see how we can help them, the transporters and then the manufacturers.”
“And that’s what we’re going to do on Monday,” in the meeting with Dangote Plc, BUA Plc, Lafarge Plc and others.
While commending the level of work on the East-West highway, he informed that “our job as a ministry is to encourage the contractor to do a good job according to design and according to the expectation of Nigerians.”
Continuing, he noted the impact of new engineers deployed by the Contractor, “he is a very well qualified, registered engineer. And we have met on other projects and technically he is very good. So, I am very happy for that.”
On the need to expedite work on the project, the Honourable Minister said “there is an increase in the number of sections that we are working on, because of how urgent this job is, we should have more sections. They have opened about five sections. We should have almost all the sections being worked upon.”
Commenting on the percentage of work done by the Contractor, the Honourable Minister said “ well, we can’t talk in terms of percentage. If we get all the quality jobs like this, then I’ll go to sleep, because this is the major.”
According to him, “ the foundation of every structure is more important than the structure itself. So, we are more interested in getting this done.
“When this is done, to lay the concrete, it’s not going to be difficult at all. But this is the most difficult.”
He assured that the coming of rains should not be a stumbling block to the progress work, noting that a different design would be deployed, “and that’s what we are doing in a lot of our interventions on the East-West Road.”
Sen. Umahi used the opportunity to reiterate that the tax credit scheme is still continuing saying “ it is very obvious, and we’ve said it, you know, that the President never stopped any of the project, not NNPCL tax credits. He never.”
“In fact, he has also, based on the first module, given approval that we can review the projects,” he stressed.
The Honourable Minister however emphasised that “we are bound to review it.
And we’ve started reviewing it. And we’ve reviewed this one. Fortunately for us, the contract of this one has not increased, even though we have redesigned it”.
Earlier, the Honourable Minister , Sen. Umahi attended Senator Barinada Mpigi’s thanksgiving service held in his hometown, Okoroma in Tai Local Government Area of Rivers State. Senator Mpigi represents South-East senatorial zone of Rivers State in the Senate.
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