Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike has stated that the procurement law is to blame for the country’s large number of unfinished government projects.
On Wednesday, he spoke during the inauguration of the Rumuokwuta/Rumuola Flyover in Port Harcourt, the state capital.
Wike noted that in order to avoid the bottleneck of the Federal Government’s procurement rules, they needed to alter the state’s procurement statute.
“I found out that part of the problems we are having with so many uncompleted projects has to do with our procurement law. If you need the procurement law, it will take a very long to complete a project because how much does our procurement law (Federal) say? 15 percent to 30 percent.
“When you give a contractor 15 percent, before you pay another money inflation is almost every day and then they will come for variation because of high cost of building materials.
“But in our own case, I called Mr Speaker to say we can’t continue with this, we have to amend our own procurement law that will give us the latitude where we can pay a company we know that has the capacity to deliver within time, we pay that company 70 percent and that is why no project being handled by Julius Berger that is uncompleted,” Wike said.
He claimed that the 11th and 12th flyovers he built in the state took only eight months to complete after they were commissioned in August 2022.
Bola Tinubu, the President-elect, was present to open the Rumuokwuta/Rumuola Flyover, and Governor Wike revealed why he summoned the former Lagos State governor.
“Your Excellency, the day you came to campaign in Rivers State, you paid us a visit in the government house Port Harcourt, I am happy and I know Kayode Fayemi was there, Umahi was there and some other people.
“I did say I invited one of the presidential candidates to come and commission the Mkpolu-Orowoluko Flyover; I invited another presidential candidate to commission Rumogba Flyover.
“But when you came the campaign was almost over, you had about three more days to round up your campaigns, but I said I will invite you after the election to come and commission your own project. To the glory of God, you are coming as the President-elect to commission this project,” he explained.
Along with Tinubu, the event was attended by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, as well as governors from Jigawa, Ebonyi, Kwara, and Imo, among others. Some former APC governors were also in attendance.
Wike was congratulated by the President-Elect for proclaiming Wednesday a holiday in honor of his visit to the South-South state.
