The Federal Government has justified its decision to award the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway project to Hitech Construction Company Ltd, explaining that due process was followed in line with procurement laws.
The Minister of Works, Senator Dave Umahi, provided the clarification on Saturday during an inspection tour of the highway project in Lagos.
“Some people say that it didn’t go through a competitive bidding.
“I want to explain this: we have three types of procurement allowed by law,” he said.
Umahi outlined the three procurement methods as restrictive procurement, selective or competitive bidding, and open bidding.
“When we started this project, we asked for companies that have up to five written concrete pavers.
“You will agree with me that until we started this, the concrete paver was not common in Nigeria as it is today.
“We had to look for a company that had done this kind of project before, and that is Hitech.”
He highlighted Hitech’s previous work on the reconstruction of the Oworonshoki-Apapa Road as a key factor in its selection.
“We saw that they got it right, so we called them on Section 1.
“Then, we used restrictive bidding, which we sent to BPP (Bureau for Public Procurement) and we sent to the Federal Executive Council and they looked at it and corrected where they should and passed it accordingly.
“When other companies started bringing in some equipment, because they saw that the Ministry of Works is insisting, especially where we have a high water table, that we must use concrete, they started to bring in concrete equipment,” he said.
According to Umahi, the Federal Government subsequently opened Section 2 of the project to selective bidding, allowing several companies to participate, with Hitech emerging as the winner.
He stated that a similar process was followed for Sections 3A and 3B of the project.
“We have not gone outside the law, we have not gone outside the Procurement Act.”
The minister stressed that President Bola Tinubu had no hand in recommending any company for the project.
“I want to say that there is no corruption in it. It is very transparent,” he added.