The House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating the slow pace of the 45km Ijebu-Igbo Ita Ibadan road in Oyo State has summoned Federal Ministry of Works officials to appear before it on September 28.

This is to explain controversies surrounding the re-awarding of the road project to another contractor without terminating the earlier one awarded to the first contractor.

Rep. Kwamoti Laori, the committee chairman, said this in Abuja at the resumed hearing of the investigation after its oversight visit to the site on September 21 in Oyo and part of Ogun State.

Those summoned are the directors of Engineering Highways, South-West and finance and legal departments.

Mr Laori said the probe panel would not hesitate to summon the minister of works if the officials failed to explain the controversies over the project’s re-award.

Adedamola Kuti, director of Highway, South-West, Ministry of Works, had told the committee during its inaugural sitting on September 7 that the contract being handled by DC Engineering Ltd. had been terminated since September 2022

He said it had been re-awarded to two other companies while promising lawmakers to make a copy of the termination letter available within 72 hours.

Three weeks later, neither Mr Kuti nor any ministry official could make a copy of the termination letter available to the committee.

Ade Adedeji, executive director of DC Engineering Ltd, told the committee that he did not receive any contract termination letter from the ministry.

He said their equipment and workers were still on the project site, adding that the same ministry had certified their work and just paid them in August 2023.

(NAN)