MDGs Projects – Lands, Housing contractors protest Non-payment

Contractors handling Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) projects at the Federal Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development blocked the entrance gate to the headquarters of the ministry at Mabuchi, Abuja, preventing vehicles and staff from going in and out of the office and demanding the payment of the arrears of the 2012, 2013 and 2014 contract sums of completed projects across the country.

The protest, which commenced in the early Monday morning was to drive home the demand to promptly pay all contractors whose projects had been completed and certificates raised in the last three years.

Speaking on behalf of its members, the chairman, Association of Lands and Housing Contractors, Alhaji Lawal Adewale, said members had gone through untold hardship. According to him, the no-payment of the contract sums had led to the death of some members, others have been thrown out of their residences for defaulting in house rents while others have had their properties taken over by the banks for defaulting in loans collected to execute the projects.

He said ministry officials had continued to give them dates of payments for three years now without any concrete efforts to pay the arrears of monies owed contractors, hence the need to stage this protest.

Addressing the contractors at his office, the permanent secretary, Ministry of Lands, Mr. George Ossi, urged the contractors to remain calm as concerted effort was being made to ensure the payment of contractors who had completed various projects between 2012 and 2014.

According to him, the unfortunate development affected not only the ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, but cut across all ministries, department and agencies (MDAs) of government because of the dwindling price of crude oil and the acute shortage of federal government revenue.

He said the ministry had written to the Federal Ministry of Finance concerning the delay in paying its local contractors, and that assurances had been given that such funds would be released soon to defray all the debts.

Economist and financial analysts have at different fore condemned the actions of government by not releasing capital funds meant for development, while promptly those for recurrent expenditure every month to service overheads.

Source – LeadershipNG