Oyo government, contractor fight over construction equipment, road contract

ENL Consortium Company and Governor Seyi Makinde’s government are at loggerheads over the safety of the latter’s equipment on a construction site.

ENL chairman Adesuyi Haastrup alleged that his company, initially handling a road project for the Oyo government, uncovered plans to destroy the construction firm’s equipment on site, accusing Mr Makinde’s administration on Friday of being behind the plan.

However, the Commissioner for Public Works in Oyo, Daud Sangodoyin, said the allegation that Mr Makinde’s government planned to destroy the equipment was false.

Mr Sangodoyin stated this on Saturday while briefing journalists on the situation in respect of the controversy concerning the construction of a 32km circular road in Ibadan.

While dismissing the allegation, Mr Sangodoyin said, “Craneburg is the new company contracted by the state government for construction of the 32km circular road. Governor Seyi Makinde-led administration had terminated the initial contract awarded to ENL Consortium Company on the project. So, I don’t know who gave them false information that we wanted to destroy their property.”

On an allegation that the Oyo government disobeyed a court order stopping the project, the commissioner said the government filed a counter-affidavit against the order by an Abuja high court restraining Craneburg Construction Company Ltd from working on the road project.

“It is true that the ENL Consortium served notices to our lawyers, and we went to court. But, on July 25, the state Ministry of Justice wrote to us, based on the advice of the state counsel, that our contractor can go back to the site since we have filed a counter-affidavit on the injunction,” Mr Sangodoyin explained.

He added, “The authority cited by the state Ministry of Justice and our counsel stipulates that we can actually advise our contractor to start work.”

The commissioner added that the project awarded to the new contractor was a separate contract of bridges and interchanges on the stretch of the road after the termination of the ENL Consortium contract.

According to him, the bridges and interchanges project on the road was not part of the initial contract, which the previous administration awarded to ENL Consortium.

Mr Sangodoyin also explained that the previous administration awarded the 32-kilometre east end wing of the 107km Ibadan circular road to ENL Consortium in 2017.

“But, it could only complete two kilometres out of 32 kilometres after the expiration of the duration agreed upon. Governor Seyi Makinde encouraged the contractor to work on so that perhaps, it would be able to finish the project,” the commissioner said. “But up till 2020, the contractor did nothing, and the contract was terminated due to the fact that the contractor didn’t fulfil the condition of the contract.”

(NAN)