Bu Nicholas Kalu, Abuja

The Ecological Fund Committee of the House of Representatives has queried the lack of documents of the erosion and flood control project at Kuchiyako 1 District, New Hope Avenue, Kuje, Abuja funded by the Ecological Fund Office (EFO).

The committee directed EFO to produce the contractor handling the project and also demanded that all the details concerning the project be made available before Thursday.

This followed an inspection, as part of its oversight function, of projects carried out by the EFO in Abuja on Monday.

The committee, led by Rep Ibrahim Isiaka, was piqued that the contractor was not on ground and no information about the project was made available to them.

He said they were not on a jamboree and directed that the commissioning of the project must be put on hold.

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“The committee members are feeling that the contractor treated them with disdain. We are just from Karshi and here we are here in Kuje in the spirit of patriotism and nationalism and call to duty by the National Assembly and in line with the provision of the constitution of what we should do. We are now doing it and you see the frustration. It is so sad to come and meet nobody.

“The only thing we are told is that they want to commission the work. We have seen nothing to commission here and we are going to pass this to the EFO. The contractor is not responsible to us though. But the EFO is responsible to us and answers questions from us because we directly oversight them. They will in turn inform the contractor. We have nothing to commission here as far as the committee is concerned and until we resolve such, I am afraid there is nothing to commission.

“If the contractor is recalcitrant, then we move to the next stage and suspend the contractor from taking any job on any of the projects in the EFO. It is going to be a resolution. We would present it on the floor of the House. We are not threatening anybody but the right thing must be done,” he said.

The committee had earlier visited the site of the construction of hydraulics structures and road improvement works on eroded Tudun Wada to Karshi Road (phase 1) and emergency surface protection works on the reclaimed earthwork along Tudun Wada Karshi Road, Abuja (phase 2).

Isiaka said the project would improve the lives of the people in the area.

He said the EFO has done well under the current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

“Of course, the ecological office itself under the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, we have gone to several project sites and we are short of saying that the indicators are there that there is a paradigm shift totally away from what the ecological fund was known for,” he said.

He called for oversight by various levels of government on projects carried out by the EFO.

“The 36 states and the FCT benefit from this fund. The 776 local government areas benefit from this fund. I appeal to other levels of government, we cannot directly oversight the states and local governments, but if every level of government does their part, we will get there. Details have been submitted to us. We would go back to our base and do a proper assessment and come out with the best judgment of what we have seen on ground,” he said.