Tinubu creates panel to clear N1.5tn debts owed 2,000 contractors

President Bola Tinubu. Photo: State House

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President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday expressed “grave displeasure” over the backlog of unpaid federal contractors and set up a high-level committee to resolve the bottlenecks and fund repayments.

Briefing State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council meeting in Abuja, Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, said the President was “upset” after learning that about 2,000 contractors are owed.

“He made it very, very clear he is not happy and wants a one-stop solution,” Onanuga told journalists.

“An important highlight in the course of the FEC meeting is that the President expressed very, very grave displeasure about the fact that contractors are being owed money.

“The DG of the Bureau of Public Procurement actually told the President that about 2,000 contractors are being owed money and this made the President very, very upset.

“So the ministers are going to look into the problem to really find a solution, to find the money to be used in paying the contractors,” he further explained.

According to him, the committee includes the Ministers of Finance (and Coordinating Minister of the Economy), Wale Edun; Budget and Economic Planning, Atiku Bagudu; Works, Dave Umahi; Education, Olatunji Alausa; Housing, Ahmed Dangiwa; and Marine & Blue Economy, Gboyega Oyetola, along with the Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Tanimu Kurfi; and the Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Dr Zacch Adedeji.

“All of them are supposed to sit down, develop a plan as a committee, meet as a committee, and then go to the president to tell him the solution they have found in allocating funds to pay contractors,” he stated.

Onanuga added that the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Procurement briefed the Council on the magnitude of the legacy debts, prompting the President’s directive.

“The mandate is to find the money and fix the problem of paying contractors.

“We need to look at problems. What has been causing this problem? Why have we had the FIRS saying we are getting more money and so on, yet we are owing contractors? What could be the cause of this thing?

“That’s why he set up a multi-ministerial committee to look at the problem. He even said that, as a sovereign country, we can go and borrow to pay those contractors. But I think by the time those on the committee meet him today, I think we will find a solution,” he explained.

Onanuga’s comments follow weeks of pressure from contractors who decried delays in payment of arrears for jobs completed since the previous year.

In early September, the All Indigenous Contractors Association of Nigeria protested at the Finance Ministry in Abuja, claiming more than N4tn was outstanding for certified 2024 capital projects, a figure also reported during their demonstration at the National Assembly.

The Works Ministry had acknowledged a backlog much earlier, launching a verification drive in January 2024 to clear roughly N1.5tn owed on federal highway contracts.

Beyond the payment backlog, budget execution has also been complicated by carry-overs.

Nigeria has been running overlapping budgets, extending 2024 capital components deep into 2025.

On November 12, lawmakers approved an extra N1.15tn in domestic borrowing to plug a widened 2025 deficit, even as the government tapped Eurobond markets for $2.35bn to bolster financing.

With three years of experience, Stephen, The PUNCH correspondent, has been covering Nigeria’s presidency, politics, security, immigration and trafficking in persons

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