Contractors mobilise, as they protest against works ministry, giving them 7-day ultimatum

Barring last minute's changed of plans some aggrieved indigenous contractors may spoil the showdown with the federal ministry of works.

"The contractors, Monday, issued the ministry a one week ultimatum to treat their files and direct for immediate payment of their contract money or risk protest."

Maduka Addresses journalists on behalf of the contractors, he says that the ministry was frustrating local contractors through deliberate failure to treat their files and ensure money owed them is paid since they had delivered the work or gone far in handling the contract.

"Maduka also alleged that the ministry made sure foreign contractors were paid but is frustrating payment for local contractors by delaying to act on their files."

Should the permanent secretary, Mahmuda Mamman, fail to address the contractors demands, they would embark on massive protest to ministry of works, office of the Head of Service of the federation, the National Assembly and National Human Rights Commission to appeal to them to redeploy the permanent secretary, he said.

"The threat is coming a few days after the  civil society organisation, Governance Monitor Initiative (GMI) urged President "Bola Ahmad Tinubu" to urgently redeploy the permanent secretary for allegedly sabotaging the new government’s efforts."

Addressing a press conference in Abuja,  programme manager of GMI, "Frank Chigozie", accused the permanent secretary of deliberately frustrating efforts to move the country’s infrastructure development forward.

"He added that because of the perm sec’s attitude which is a clear sabotage, the contractors handling work on flood control have abandoned sites."

But when contacted, the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing which promised that it will respond after obtaining approval later called to say that it's a vague accusation, that the ministry won’t respond to unauthenticated allegations.

"The director of the press in the ministry, "Blessing Lere-Adams", noted that there are two things that she observed in the accusation." Firstly, there is no signature of anybody who is writing the petition and secondly, no date on it. "So she is going to drop it."

He said, am sorry, the petition must be authenticated by these: an identifiable address date/reference well endorsed with a name/mobile number inclusive. "Only then it can be attended to. 

Please note !!!"

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