Federal government on Saturday explained why it awarded the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway project to Hitech Construction Company Ltd.
Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, made the explanation during an inspection tour of the highway project in Lagos.
“Some people say that it did not go through competitive bidding. I want to explain this: we have three types of procurement allowed by law,” he said.
Umahi listed the three types as restrictive procurement, selective/competitive bidding and open bidding.
“When we started this project, we asked for companies that have up to five wirtgne concrete paver.
“You will agree with me that until we started this, the concrete paver was not common in Nigeria as it is today.
“We had to look for a company that had done this kind of project before and that is Hitech.”
He noted that it reconstructed Oworonshoki- Apapa Road.
“We saw that they got it right; so, we called them on Section 1.
“Then, we used restrictive bidding, which we sent to the Bureau for Public Procurement, BPP, and the Federal Executive Council, they looked at it and corrected where they should and passed it accordingly.
“When other companies started bringing in some equipment, because they saw that the Ministry of Works was insisting, especially where we have high water table, that we must use concrete, they started bringing in concrete equipment,” he said.
Umahi added that the federal government consequently opened Section 2 of the project to selective bidding and selected some companies and they bid.
He said Hitech won the bidding.
The minister noted that in Section 3A and 3B, the same thing happened.
“We have not gone outside the law, we have not gone outside the Procurement Act.”
He emphasised that President Bola Tinubu did not recommend any company for the highway project.
“ I want to say that there is no corruption in it. It is very transparent,” he added. NAN
