FG Roads: Govs’ claims need verification – FMW
Adetokunbo Fakeye
Federal Ministry of Works on Wednesday said claims by some governors concerning maintenance or construction of federal roads in their state will have to be verified.
A top official in the ministry, who revealed this on Wednesday said that some states that got approval and carried out the rehabilitation of some federal roads in line with approved guidelines might have been paid contrary to claims by state governors.
It was gathered that, there are approved guidelines in respect of federal roads, but some governors refused to follow them.
A circular on the implementation of the guidelines signed by Alhaji Yayale Ahmed, a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, was made available on Wednesday.
The guidelines, which implementation took effect from Aug. 1, 2010, according to the circular, was still in force.
The circular entitled “Guidelines for the Execution of Federal Government Projects by State Governments and Reimbursement of Expenditure”, lists out the requirements for the rehabilitation of federal roads.
The document specifies that “the road for which the state government intends to intervene must be a Federal Road, duly gazetted and with identifiable Route Numbers.
“State governments intending to carry out any rehabilitation works on federal roads must obtain prior approval from the President through Federal Ministry of Works.
“The road to be rehabilitated must be designed and must comply with the Federal Highway Specifications and Standards.
“There must be strict compliance with the Procurement Act 2007 (Sections 17, 18,&19) in the planning, organisation and evaluation of tender and award of the road contract.’’
It further stated that a joint team comprising representatives of the federal and state governments had to supervise every stage of rehabilitation project.
The document added that a special project audit team headed by the Minister of Works with the Director-General, Bureau of Public Procurement, should verify the claims of the state government before processing.
“Joint supervision and certification of each stage of the works executed on the project must be carried out with the Federal Ministry of Works engineers in the relevant State Field Office before submission of same to the Federal Ministry of Works for processing.
However, according to he official, some of these governors embarked on rehabilitation or re-construction work on the roads without prior approval of the Federal Government.
“They cannot expect the Federal Government to pay for jobs which it did not grant approval and which are not up to standard.
“In many cases the so-called rehabilitation work does not measure up to the huge financial claims some of the governors are making.
“I can tell you that the states that got approval of the Federal Government and carried out the rehabilitation according to the regulations have been paid”, he said.