Kidnapping: FG Orders Julius Berger To Fix Potholes On Abuja-Kaduna-Kano Road

The Federal government has directed Julius Berger, the contractor handling Abuja-Kaduna-Kano Road, to fix potholes in three days to ease movement.

The minister of Works, Engr David Umahi, gave the ultimatum on Wednesday during a meeting with Julius Berger’s management in Abuja.

He said the potholes were giving bandits the leverage to kidnap road users on the route.

He said, “The essence of this meeting is to determine the areas of agreement and disagreement over all the jobs. We have discussed Abuja-Kaduna-Kano to Kano.”

He explained that the project was divided into three parts: Julius Berger was given 82km by two, which is 164km to complete on Asphalt, Dangote 32 km by two to complete on tax credit concrete, and BUA about 17km to complete on tax credit concrete.

He said the federal government had also returned to the site ten days ago to flag off the re-engagement of these contractors, and work is ongoing.

“However, we are not very happy with Berger’s pace of work, but it is good quality work. So, we have discussed one: for Berger to stick to one carriageway within their scope and conclude. While doing that, they should be able to fill all the potholes with stone Bases within the next three days.

If they still need to do that by Friday, we’ve given a directive to the director to get some contractors to fill it out and then send a memo to the permanent secretary so that we can pay the bill.

He continued, “The lives of Nigerians are critical, and we are having kidnapping going on because of these potholes, and we have also asked Berger to review what the Independent consultant did, which we had agreed a total of 710Bn, which the last administration paid 391Bn and we are to pay about 320Bn for the remaining,” he said.