Construction firms operating in Nigeria, under the auspices of Federation of Construction Industries (FOCI), yesterday disclosed that they have retrenchment 65,000 of their over 85,000 workforce, following their inability to meet up with their obligations to them.
This they blamed on the recession that has hit the sector, following debt of over N600billion owed its members by the federal, state and local governments.
FOCI president, Solomon Ogunbusola, while addressing journalists in Abuja, yesterday, called on the federal government to wade in and save the sector from total collapse.
He lamented that no capital fund had been paid to any of the over 135 construction firms who are members of FOCI since August 2014, even though some of the jobs for which his members were being owed, had been completed and handed over to the government, adding that a letter written to President Muhammadu Buhari on September 17, 2015, on the issue had yet to be responded to.
According to him, as a result of the unpaid debts, some firms that took bank loans to execute the jobs for which they were being owed had been saddled with the challenge of having interest accrue on the loans.
“Some of us took loans which we have not been able to pay back and interest is accumulating on the loans daily. This isn’t helping us and that is why we want the government to look into this issue to see how the situation can be salvaged,” he said.
Ogunbusola advised the federal government to offset the backlog of payment for some of the certified jobs to enable contractors go back to work especially as they are going into the dry season when they would be able to work without hindrances from the rain.
He further urged the government to do away with the old practice of frivolous award of contracts without budgetary allocation, as well as “political award of contracts” to firms without the requisite manpower and equipment to handle the jobs.
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