The Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) in Kano has lamented over how some unqualified contractors get contracts worth millions of naira.
Acting Federal Road Maintenance Engineer in the State, Ali Abdu, lamented over this when he appeared before the House Committee on FERMA, on Tuesday.
He briefed the lawmakers on the activities of the agency on 2023 contract projects.
He said, “Sadly, some contractors are not competent, they don’t even have a shovel, talk less of working equipment, but get contracts of millions to execute.”
He added that part of the problems the agency is facing is “lack of operational vehicles, as those for supervision are either not working or need to be replaced.”
The engineer highlighted that the Federal Road across the borders of Kano amounts to 990 kilometres; while 423 kilometres are in good condition, 502 are in fair condition, 32km in poor condition, and 33 kilometers are in bad condition, whereas 16 contracts were appropriated in the 2023 budget and only one was on the Federal Road.
He said out of the 16 contracts, six had been completed, five were ongoing, one contractor had reported but yet to commence work, and four contractors were yet to report.
Earlier, the Chairman House Committee on FERMA, Engr. Aderemi Abasi Oseni, and other honourable members of the committee engaged the Zonal Directors and Federal Road Maintenance Engineers (FRME) from North West Zone I and II of the Agency on their activities.
FERMA zone I comprises Kano, Kaduna and Katsina while Zone II covers Zamfara, Sokoto and Kebbi, headed by two Zonal Directors.
Engr Oseni said the committee is committed to assisting in the continuous operation and actualization of the agency’s mandate as professionals.
“We are here to see how you are faring. With the quality of your presentation and what we saw here physically on site, I think there is an opportunity for us to appreciate the quality of staff that we have at FERMA.
“You have demonstrated competence and have sufficiently proven that we can have hope in you when we come to quality road delivery, and where you equally need to be assisted, we have seen that from what you expressed and within the limit and grace of privilege that I have as the Chairman of this agency, we will do our best to compliment what you are doing.”
On his part, the Deputy Chairman of the committee who is also the team leader of the northwest zone, Sadiq Ango Abudullahi, commended the activities of the agency.
“This zone has tried in terms of quality service delivery and we have promised them to help them face some of the challenges through legislation and in line with the legislative agenda we intend to address some of the issues that they are facing.”
