The Federal Government has given a 21 month ultimatum to the consultant and contractor handling the abandoned multi-billion Naira National Library project to mobilize to the site and ensure completion.
Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman, gave the directive on Tuesday in Abuja during the project inspection.
He said the contractor would soon return to the site to complete the all-important national edifice for use by the citizenry.
According to him, “This project is too important for Nigerians and we have this project uncompleted for close to 20 years. We know the importance of a library not to talk about a national library.
“So, the decision is that we have a president who does not tolerate uncompleted projects anywhere. He is determined to deliver on what will bring progress and development and the National Library is one of the major edifices anywhere in the world.
”So, the decision is that everyone involved must come back to the site,”.
He noted that all issues, especially the cost of the project awarded years back, would be reviewed to meet current dynamics and enhance its speedy completion.
“There are some issues here and there but the project will be completed in about 21 months.
”But we are urging them (The construction company) to deliver the project earlier because we’ve dragged it for too long and the project is too important for it to be dragged any further.
”So whatever obstacles in the project, we are determined to go over it and attend to it so it doesn’t become an obstacle,” he said.
Also in her remark, the National Library, Professor Chinwe Anunobi faulted the issues of bureaucratic bottleneck to have hindered the completion of the project since awarded in 2006.
She assured that work would commence immediately, mentioning that the monitoring would be followed by meetings of stakeholders involved in the project.
The initial contract sum of the national library as of March 11, 2006, when it was first awarded was N8,590,226,393.00 when the exchange rate was N130.29. The project was then expected to span through 22 months.
The Ministry of Education later re-awarded the project in March 2010 for 21 months at the cost of N49,643,337,960.32.
However, the construction firm in charge of the project, Reynolds Construction Company Nigeria Ltd. had in 2010 projected N120,327,599,990.45 as the cost of completion of the project.
Also, as of 2012, when the exchange rate was N163, N150 million was needed for the completion of the project.
Considering the current exchange rate of 774 naira per dollar, the government is expected to spend over N100 billion in order to complete the project.
