Governor Ahmadu Fintiri has released a N1.3 billion contract variation to complete the ongoing township roads in the Jimeta metropolis.

Information commissioner Umar Pella confirmed this on Tuesday. He said the approval for releasing the fund was part of the 12th executive council resolutions held recently, saying the roads have reached an appreciable completion stage.

He explained that the road contract, awarded to Batco construction company, had an initial completion period of 18 months at the initial contractual sum of over N5.8 billion.

According to him, after evaluation of the contractor’s performance and the level of work done, coupled with the rapid change in the cost of construction materials due to the decrease in the value of the naira necessitated the variation.

“The council has considered to vary the pending projects with the N1.3 billion to enable the timely completion of the projects. With the variation of the contract to N1.3 billion from the initial agreed cost of N5.8 billion, the total contract sum now stood at over N7.17 billion,” stated the commissioner.

Mr Pella added, “The total length of the projects is 17.3 kilometres. We give the contractor (an) additional 12-month period within which to complete the projects.” 

(NAN)