By Ken Afor
The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has categorically stated that he will not be involved in flagging off a project that would not been completed.
He made this statement on Friday at the flag-off of the 7.2km Gaba-Tokulo-Kaima road in Bwari Area Council, Abuja.
While assuring residents in the area of the swift completion of projects, Nyesom Wike, the immediate past Governor of Rivers State, stated that he would not allow bureaucratic bottlenecks to stall projects in the FCT.
However, he warned FCT officials against sabotaging projects in rural communities, reiterating that no projects would be approved without the availability of funds for execution.
According to him, “I am not going to be involved in award of any contract when we don’t have money and that was why when I came on board, I tried to discourage directors to stop this idea of putting projects when there is no money. It doesn’t make sense.
“The greatest 419 (fraud) you do to a community is flagging-off a project and the next one month you don’t see any contractor again. That is the highest 419.
“We will not be involved in that. If I start a project, it must be completed. I am not going to do a project that will last more than one year. I won’t be a party to that.
“A project that will cost you N6 billion, then you go and put in the budget N300 million. Are you willing to complete that project then? Certainly not. So, we are going to change the narrative. We are going to change the way people use to do things before. We are going to do something that will have direct impact on the people.
“Tinubu asks me to tell Bwari Area Council people that all what they requested should be given to them. Therefore, all your requests on the abandoned projects which were initially to be carried out by FCDA, I can assure you that by the directive of the president, go home and sleep with your two eyes closed. Those projects must be restarted.
Reacting to attacks on rural communities in some parts of the country, Wike attributed them to a lack of basic amenities, such as the absence of good road networks. This has made it difficult for security agencies to perform effectively when called upon to respond.
“Part of insecurity is as a result of lack of basic infrastructure. People don’t have access roads and that makes things difficult for even security agencies to carry out their jobs very well. Each day, you hear that there is crisis in the neighbouring communities. How can the police and other security agencies go there when there is no good road?,” he added.
He berated officials who habitually delay payments to contractors, urging them to consider it a matter of urgency to ensure prompt payment for the completion of projects.
“I told the civil servants that this is not going to be a period where they will bring bureaucracy to what they are doing. They minute a file to you, the file will stay two weeks? Woe be unto you that you will make anything that will not make this project to go on well.
“When a file comes to you for payment of contractors, ensure you process and pay to them because when you keep the file you suffer the projects, and who will suffer? The community suffers. I am not going to tolerate that. Anybody who sabotages our efforts will also be sabotaged, so have it at the back of your mind”, he added.
According to the Chairman of Bwari Area Council, John Gabaya, the Gaba-Tokulo-Kaima road project was among other abandoned projects conceived during the era of the former Head of State, Ibrahim Babangida.
