UBEC decries poor execution of primary school projects in Benue

 The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) has raised concern over the poor execution of primary school projects in Benue.

The UBEC Coordinator in the state, Mrs Augustina Sanchi, stated this on Monday during their joint inspection of primary school projects with Benue State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) in Tarka and Gboko Local Government Areas.

Sanchi explained that all contractors were given project specifications and had no excuse for the poor quality of job done, adding that there were series of meetings with the contractors on the issue before hand.

She said even though some of the contractors did good jobs there were some whose jobs were not impressive.

According to her, some of the contractors who failed to follow the projects specifications were asked to stop work and report to the board immediately.

“Today I have seen the work a lot of the contractors are doing. I am happy that the contractors were not informed of this inspection because when you tell them at the end of the day a lot of things are covered up.

“The assessment of these jobs to me is just 65 per cent done. I am not quite impressed with some of them. Some are okay. The rest have to report to the board because we have specifications.

“They have it in their contract papers and we must keep to those specifications. See this is our children if anything happens it is not just to the family, it is Benue State and we don’t want that to happen.

“It is just that some of them are cutting corners and that is why I said if we allow poor jobs it is the state that will be in for it and that would not be tolerated.

“That is why such contractors are asked to stop work and report to the board. I have given a stop work order,” she said.

The coordinator however noted that though there were no cases of abandoned projects from 2016 to part of 2018 that Benue had accessed.

She added that there were few cases in the past which were all reported to the board.

Earlier, the Chairman, State Universal Education Board (SUBEB), Mr Emmanuel Aper, said some of the contractors did a good job while others failed to follow job specifications.

Aper further said that the officer in charge of projects would communicate the contractors to make amends.

He insisted that all contractors were given projects specifications, adding that they had no excuse for the unimpressive work done.

“To be honest most of the contractors have tried. Just few structures that I actually don’t appreciate their work and we believe that the officer in charge of projects will visit those projects officially and asked those contractors to make amends.

“Actually even the contractors themselves have the document; they know exactly what to do, some of them refused to follow the specifications simply because they want some little drop in the amount of money awarded for the contract, if not they have known,’’ said Aper.