By Aderogba George, News Agency of Nigeria, Abuja.
FCT Indigenous contractors have pleaded with the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), Mr Nyesom Wike, to pay the over N5.2 Billion they claim the administration is owing them.
Mr Adebola Benson, Chairman of the Indigenous contractors made the appeal at a news in Abuja on Wednesday, to express the displeasure from members of the group.
He said that the FCT administration is owing Indigenous contractors handling the various project within the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) over N5.2 billion, saying that members of the group invested a lot of resources to carry out various project allocated to them.
According to Benson, members of this group can no longer meet up with their family responsibilities as a result of the resources invested in the project they carried out, while some had died as a result of thinking.
Mr Rufai Mosuwa, a member of the contractors committee stated that members were not suppose to have headache before they could collect their money, since due process were followed before carrying out their various project.
He stated that most of these jobs have been completed, which they have even submitted completion certificate, while others are already in their final stage of completion.
“Ordinarily, we are not suppose to have headache for this payment if not that the FCT Minister stops payment. Since he did this, we thought it is a temporary thing, but at the end of the day, we saw that it was taking too long.
“We have written an open letter to this effect to Mr President, Bola Tinubu to intervene, the effect of non payment is unimaginable. We have also written about seven letters to the Minister, but non has been responded to.
“We have written letter to Senator representing FCT, Sen. Ireti Kingibe, who try to intervene, she forwarded our letter to Senate Committee on Public Petition, we appeared there once for them to look into our case, but FCT representative was not at that meeting.
“The case was adjourned and since then they have not called us
“We have also written to Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on FCT, Sen. Aliyu Murktar Betara. We have also submitted our complain to the Department of State Security (DSS), but nothing has come out of all these letters.
“Recently, we have written to the Senate President, Inspector-General of Police, but we are yet to get response from all, Mosuwa said.
He said that the jobs in question have been fully executed getting to three years now, while appealing to the Minister to do the needful in terms of paying the contractors.
Mr Martins Ezendu, a member of the Board of Trustee of the contractors spoke on the effect this non payment of the contract sum has caused to members, saying that a lot of people have died as a result of this.
According to him, many members are sick with non-communicable diseases, while some of their members have been ejected from their rented apartment since they can no longer meet up with house rent.
He said that banks are after some of the members, and that some of their children are out of school as a result debt they too are owing some organisation.
Ezendu called on Wike to respond to their demand urgently, saying that they will be back in the street for protest if he refused to pay them their money.
NEWS AGENCY OF NIGERIA