Kogiflame.com
Fish sellers in Lokoja , Kogi state has appealed to the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) to recall the contractor that handled the construction of Lokoja Fish Modern Market to come back and complete the installation of the major component of the project to enable them benefit from the laudable constituency project.
The spokesman and the manager of the market , Alhaji Aliu Lawal Jiya who made the appeal in Lokoja, on behalf of the fish sellers during the visit of ICPC tracking team on constituency projects in Kogi state , said the modern fish market was a constituency project initiated by the late Majority Leader of House of Representative, Alhaji Buba Jibrin to alleviate the suffering of women who sells their fish under excruciating sun and heavy rain.
He lamented that after the commissioning of the project in December 2017, the project was not completed as major components of the project were not provided by the contractors.
“Since the commissioning of the project , the generator was not put in use and today we really don’t know the condition of the source of light.
“The refrigerating system which is sacrosanct in the contract was not functioning and it has rendered the project less important.
“We don’t have the details of the project in the areas of how much was approved for it and the components of the structure. It is evidently clear that some of the components are not working ,
“I remember when I took over the management of the market January last year, the fish traders wanted to make use of the cold room but not functioning and we discovered that during commissioning of the project the cooling system sparked and could not function. The contractors promised to come back and repair it but nothing has been done till date.
“We could have written to the national assembly to compel the contractors to come and complete the project, but We can not do follow up because we don’t have the details of the project.
Jiya , a former retired Permanent Secretary disclosed that the project was built from the scratch as a constituency project, but the money spent on the structure does not measured to the contract sum of N120 million approved and released for the project.
He appealed to government at all levels to always ensured that projects are completed base on the contract agreement before commissioning, stressing that after commissioning the contractors will never show up again.
The Kogi CPTG team who visited the fish market observed that the two cold rooms, the generating set and the motorised borehole are not functioning since the day the modern fish market was commissioned in 2017.
They also observed that the contract sum was 120 million naira while 80 per cent of the contract sum has been released remaining the retention which is 20 per cent as 26 million naira was also released for the construction of the structure alone.
The team however appealed to communities to cooperate with the ICPC team to achieve the objective of the constituency project tracking to enable the direct beneficiaries enjoy the project.
