In response, Atiku challenged the
Federal Government to disclose the total cost of the Lagos-Calabar highway
project.
Umahi, during a TV appearance on
Thursday, disclosed that the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway would cost N4
billion per kilometre, contradicting the former Vice President’s claim of N8
billion per km.
Reacting, the former Vice
President in a statement by his media office, on Thursday criticised Umahi for
allegedly modifying the original project plan after Gilbert Chagoury’s Hitech
was awarded the contract without undergoing competitive bidding.
“The presidential candidate of
the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2023 election, Atiku Abubakar, has
described as wasteful and a highway to fraud the claim by Works Minister, Dave
Umahi, that the 700km Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway will tentatively cost N15.6
trillion.
“Umahi had announced that the project would be
fully funded by Hitech, and based on this, there was no competitive bidding. He
(Umahi) then turned around to say that Hitech could only raise just 6% of the
money for the pilot phase. This smacks of deceit.
“The total budget of all 36
states of the federation for 2024 stands at about N14 trillion. If you add that
of the FCT, the entire budget of all sub-nationals is N15.91 trillion. This is
scandalous. Worse still, they have already awarded the contract but are still
not sure of the level of the counterpart funding component of the Federal
Government”, the statement read.
The former Vice President
observed that in the 2024 budget, the project was identified as the Lagos-Port
Harcourt coastal highway and was allocated a budget of N500 million.
The statement added, “Although
the National Assembly approved N500m for the project this year, the Tinubu
administration has released N1.06tn. That is more than 200 times what is in the
Appropriation Act. This is what happens when the National Assembly fails in its
duties.
“It was curious that the N15.91
trillion announced by Umahi did not include the cost of the railway component.
He therefore wondered how much the project would cost if the railway component
was included.
“If N15.6 trillion is for the
road component alone, then the total cost could be far higher when the railway
is included. We want to know the cost of the railway.
“The PDP presidential candidate
also lambasted Umahi for admitting that the project was given to Gilbert
Chagoury’s Hitech construction company without a competitive bidding.”
He urged Umahi to refrain from
attempting to mislead Nigerians by asserting that only Hitech was capable of
executing the project, questioning whether it’s the same company that has been
struggling with project execution in Lagos.
Atiku stated, “The essence of
competitive bidding is so that Nigerians can get the best value for money. It
is so that you can compare prices and pick the company that can afford the
project. It is wrong for him to have concluded that only Hitech could handle
this project when such a project has been done by other reputable firms in the
United States, China, and South Africa.
