Local contractors to the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) have lauded FCT minister Nyesom Wike for the impact he has made since he assumed office on August 21 this year, pleading with him to approve payment for the various projects that were completed over a year ago.
In particular, they noted his welfare policies for which they said the FCTA workforce is enamoured of the minister, adding that, as contractors to the administration, they too are on the the same frequency as the workers in appreciating his impact.
They said most of the contracts are jobs of a couple of millions of Naira, totalling about N2 billion for which over 200 processed files belonging to the contractors are presently lying in the Treasury Department awaiting payment, but largely unattended to.
The said contracts cut across jobs executed in several FCTA Mandate Secretariats and involve supplies, renovation, and others of such value.
The group under the auspices of the Concerned FCTA Indigenous Contractors, in a letter dated October 18, 2023, and titled ‘Nonpayment of completed jobs at Treasury Department’, told the Minister that their jobs do not require any variation.
According to them, their files have been lying ‘fallow’ in the Treasury Department and Central Payment Office (CPO) for some time now even as non-payment has taken a toll on their family welfare.
They wrote: ‘’We, the Concerned Indigenous Contractors of FCTA, however, write to solicit and seek your intervention for the payment of our matured and completed jobs at Treasury. Most of these jobs have been done and completed for the past year and the files are lying at the Treasury Department expecting payment, but we have been told that payment has been suspended.
‘’We have been suffering due to this lack of payment resulting in the loss of our members’ lives and untold hardship on us. This request is for your intervention so we can meet our hospital bills, rent payment as well as school fees payment for our children,’’ they said.
