By Adejupo Musa
The residents of the Ministerial Highrise buildings at Mambollo Street, Wuse Zone 2, Abuja, have called in the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Barr. Nyesom Wike, to call the Lebanese contractor awarded the resurfacing of the premises of the estate to order for attempting to do a shoddy job.
Appealing to the Minister over the weekend, the residents accused the contractor of attempting to deviate from the set contract agreement signed with the FCDA in respect of the resurfacing of the area, said to have lasted over 40 years after it was done.
They claimed that instead of excavating the entire premises as awarded, the contractor only excavated less than one-third of the surface area of the front of two of the buildings where they started the resurfacing from.
According to them, “what the Lebanese contractor, who had taken measurements of the entire area of the original frontage of the six highrise buildings at the Take-off Ministerial Quarters, is doing is certainly not what he signed contract to execute,” fuelling speculations that the contractor wants to shortchange FCDA and the residents.
When The AUTHORITY visited the Mambollo Street Zone 2 contract site, it was discovered that the contractor only excavated the middle section of the front of the two buildings where the work started from, leaving the edges and other parts of the surface area untouched.
Also, the drainage points were left untouched, which the residents had complained was responsible for the damage of the surfaces since water was percolating in the surface area after rainfall, instead if draining away through the docts.
Another observation made us that the contractor who excavated no less than five inches of compact bitumen done over 40 years ago, what was left to be covered is not up to two inches, which appears to be acceptable to damaging much earlier than what they met.
“We can’t believe that this is the shoddy job awarded to this contractor. It couldn’t have been so. This place was done over 40 years ago and had just cracks and nothing more.
“But, with what we see now, this project if covered, won’t last up to a year before it gives way. There is no compacting at all. The contractor removed just a few portions of the surface area, and added sand to a surface hitherto entirely covered entirely by compacted bitumen.
“If it is so, we urge the Minister to ask him to please return the removed bitumen he removed from here so that public funds will not be spent on a shoddy job and leave us with a bad taste after a few months,” they stated.
The officials of the FCDA Engineering, as well Public Building departments who were contacted said they were not competent to speak on the matter.
The Chief Press Secretary to the Minister, Mr. Anthony Ogunye, when contacted, could not pick up his phones, but an official of FCDA said “we shall bring this matter to the attention of the relevant department”.
