The much-celebrated news of the Federal Capital Territory Minister, Mr Nyesom Wike, saving the sum of N110bn for the capital city is currently being challenged by contractors of the Federal Capital Development Authority FCDA who claimed that they’re being owed for their completed works since 2021.
One of the construction companies whose operations manager spoke with Truth Live News in Abuja on Friday accused the former governor of Rivers state of stopping their already approved payment immediately after he assumed the minister position.
Recall that Truth Live News had published how the FCT Minister Nyesom Wike Saved N110 Billion in his First 3 Months in office, which was widely publicised in the Nigerian media space.
According to the engineer, who pleaded for anonymity for fear of being victimised, “there are files that were processed for payment and were already at FCTA treasury ready to be posted to the various bank accounts before he came to FCT as a Minister”.
In his words: “These are balance payments for jobs that were completed in 2021, the files had undergone all the processes and were at the point of payment when the minister ordered them to stop the payments and used the money meant to pay us the Nigerian contractors to pay the big Foreign Contractors”.
The local contractors also alleged that those “foreign contractors make returns to him”; hence, he has been paying them since he came.
He said: “We completed our building contract and have handed over the building to FCDA”.
“We are asking the public to help us appeal to the Minister to pay Nigerian contractors who have delivered on their contract obligations”.
“We are surprised to hear him say he has saved N110bn when some local contractors are dying and some have their children withdrawn from schools”, the engineer wondered.