Julius Berger Nigeria Acting Managing Director, George Marks has said that the company is returning to site on the Lagos- Shagamu expressway and other project sites following the signing of the 2016 budget by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Mark, who disclosed this in Lagos at the weekend during the Investors Relation Forum, said the company is mobilizing to site on the strength of the provisions of the 2016 budget which was assented to last week.
“We are lifting our suspension of work at the Lagos- Shagamu expressway, the Institute for Legislative Studies and the corporate headquarters of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) because we have seen adequate commitment with the amount allocated in the 2016 budget.”
Julius Berger Nigeria had earlier suspended work on the ongoing reconstruction of Section 1 of the Lagos-Sagamu-Ibadan Expressway project, and several other projects it was handling across the country owing to lack of payment from the federal government.
Marks said JBN needed to suspend work in order not to run into heavy debt crisis that would threaten the future cost prime structure of the company.
He said: “We experienced delayed payment on all levels, we have seen provision for doubtful repayment increase from N1.3 billion to N10 billion.
“ As a consequence, client inability to meet contractual obligations in a timely manner substantially impacted the industry and forced a reduction to low working load of 30 per cent, and a downsize of staff from 18,000 to 11,000,” he said.
The managing director disclosed that the Federation of Construction Industry (FOCI) have laid off 33,000 workers on public construction sites with an indirect consequence on 130, 000 others.
