Thomas Garba, Chiroma, Adamawa
The attention of the Board and Management of A.G. Vision Construction Nigeria Limited, has been drawn to an online publication by one TNV (The Nigerian Voice), a social media platform, of 13 February 2016 and anchored by one Tom Garuba, captioned as above. Its source was said to be Adamawa State House of Assembly during a plenary session.
It’s not usually in our character to respond to news content of social media platforms but we are constrained so to do, not only to refute the obvious lies, mis-information and innuendo contained therein, but to place the plain facts before the public and perhaps advise restraint, by practitioners of yellow journalism.
The fact of the matter is that between 2007 and 2013, various road construction contracts were awarded to our company as follows:
Maiha – Fulbere – Zhedinyi – Pelle – Maraban Pella (39.58km) with 2 bridges
Gombi – Ga’anda Road (36.33km)
Michika – Moda – Mararaba Garta Road (11km)
The total cumulative contract sum translated to about N14, 214,561,662.54. The various road work packages involved significant re-design content which initially affected the contractor’s implementation schedule but once those initial teething problems were resolved, the projects proceeded smoothly. The global average percentage of work done prior to massive dislocation of site activities by the Boko Haram menace were Maiha Pella – 75.27% completion; Gombi Ga’anda 79.15% completion and Michika Moda 51.31% completion.
However prior to this unfortunate incidence, project cash flow had begun to suffer as certified outstanding payments, had mounted to over N1Billion excluding retention. The crippling effect of the Boko Haram insurgency as manifested in the loss of staff life and equipment vandalization and damage was subsequently brought to the Notice of the client Ministry and Project supervisory consultants sometime in September 2014, who thereafter ordered the contractor to vacate the sites in November 2014 vide its letter with ref: GA/AGV/RE/VOL.1/101 & 102. This was after the Nigerian security forces had issued security alerts and barred us from access to the sites. It is on record that one of the supervisory consultant staff (Engr. Girei, of blessed memory) lost his life during this period.
The contractor had severally in various correspondences with the client and the consultants raised the twin issues of outstanding payments and Plant/Equipment damage /downtime and assured of its willingness to re-mobilize to the sites and complete the projects once these issues are satisfactorily addressed. These incidents could have been verified either with us or the client ministry/project consultants if the proprietors of TNV had been interested in the truth.
Finally, as a testimony to our well acknowledged integrity and competence, a recent road/bridge contract dated 15th December, 2015 awarded to us for the reconstruction of Yola Bridge at Kala’a Shiwa and mail 30 – Kwambla road has to date achieved 80 percentage completion. We herein once more assure the State House of Assembly and other critical stakeholders of our readiness and preparedness to complete the said projects once the outstanding issues are resolved.
