The revocation came following the alleged repeated breach of the terms of the 25-year concession agreement, as pointed out by President Goodluck Jonathan in his media chat on Sunday.
While announcing the revocation to journalists at the State House, the Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen, said government has subsequently engaged Julius Berger and RCC firms to now reconstruct the roads to avert further carnage of the expressway.
The construction of the road by Bi-Courtney, which was awarded in May 2009, was supposed to be completed in the next six months but the minister lamented that the firm had failed to achieve any remarkable milestone expected of it.
"The legal implications of this termination have been carefully considered by both the Federal Ministry of Works and indeed the federal government," said Onolememen. "If you recall, we have been on this issue for quite sometime now and we have meticulously followed the concession agreement, and the provision of relevant clauses of the agreement. We have complied fully with the provisions of this agreement.
We have had cause even in the past to write the concessionaire to detail the breaches which it had committed in this agreement in this particular transaction and we have also followed the minimum and maximum number of days the contractor was expected to remedy the situation; but failing which the federal government had no alternative but to take this course of action."
He said that since this was a concessioned project, the federal government did not make any direct payment to Bi-Courtney as it was supposed to raise the fund from the private sector and toll the road for 25 years to recoup the investment.
"For your information, under this concession the construction period is supposed to last for four years and the four years will come to a close in about six months time and right now there is nothing on ground to suggest that the company is capable," he said.
On whether it was a mistake giving the concession to Bi-Courtney, Onolememen said: "I would not want to say that it was a mistake; perhaps, at that time, they had the most responsible bid. The details are best known to the then minister of works and his team that handled the project. But again it is not out of place to give Nigerian companies opportunities to handle projects of this nature. This is our country; whoever has the ability and the capacity to do projects of this nature, should be encouraged."
According to him, under the new arrangement, Julius Berger will handle section 1: from Lagos to Shagamu interchange; while RCC Nigeria Limited will be responsible for section II: from Shagamu to Ibadan.
"The federal government wishes to assure Nigerians that while it will continue to uphold the sanctity of contracts entered into, it will not shy away from implementing provisions of the contract agreement dealing with non-performance on the part of the contracting party," he said. -daily times
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