On the weekend, Works Minister Senator Dave Umahi gave an explanation for the decision to award the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway project to Hitech Construction Company Ltd.
During his inspection tour of the Lagos highway project, he disclosed this.
“Some people say that it didn’t go through a competitive bidding,” he stated.
“I would like to clarify that the law permits three different forms of procurement,” he stated.
The three categories were open bidding, selective/competitive bidding, and restrictive procurement, according to Umahi.
“We requested businesses with up to five wired concrete pavers when we first started this project.
You would concur with me that concrete pavers were not as widespread in Nigeria as they are now before we began this.
“We needed to find a company that had experience with this type of project, and that company is Hitech.”
He mentioned that the Oworonshoki-Apapa Road was rebuilt by Hitech.
We called them on Section 1 after noticing that they got it right.
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Next, we employed limited bidding. We forwarded it to the Federal Executive Council and the Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP), who reviewed it, made the necessary corrections, and passed it on.
According to him, “other companies started bringing in concrete equipment when they saw that the Ministry of Works is insisting that we must use concrete, especially where we have a high water table.”
As a result, the Federal Government opened Section 2 of the project to selective bidding, Umahi added, and a few companies were chosen to compete.
“Hitech won the bidding,” he stated.
According to the minister, the same thing occurred in Sections 3A and 3B.
“Neither the law nor the Procurement Act have been broken by us.”
He emphasized that no company was suggested by President Bola Tinubu for the highway project.
“I would want to state that it is free of corruption. It’s really transparent,” he continued.
