By Nchetachi Chukwuajah
President Bola Tinubu has expressed “grave displeasure” over the backlog of debts owed to federal contractors and has set up a high-level committee to resolve the issue and begin repayments.
Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, disclosed this while briefing State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting in Abuja on Wednesday, December 10.
Onanuga said the president was “upset” after learning that about 2,000 contractors are owed and directed their repayment.
“He made it very, very clear he is not happy and wants a one-stop solution,” Onanuga told journalists.
“An important highlight in the course of the FEC meeting is that the president expressed very, very grave displeasure about the fact that contractors are being owed money.
“The Director General of the Bureau of Public Procurement actually told the president that about 2,000 contractors are being owed money, and this made the president very, very upset.
“So the ministers are going to look into the problem to really find a solution, to find the money to be used in paying the contractors,” he said.
He added that the president’s directive was prompted by the briefing of the BPP DG on the magnitude of the legacy debts.
“The mandate is to find the money and fix the problem of paying contractors.
“We need to look at problems. What has been causing this problem? Why have we had the FIRS saying we are getting more money and so on, yet we are owing contractors? What could be the cause of this thing?
“That’s why he set up a multi-ministerial committee to look at the problem. He even said that, as a sovereign country, we can go and borrow to pay those contractors. But I think by the time those on the committee meet him today, I think we will find a solution,” he said.
The president’s directive follows weeks of pressure from contractors who decried delays in payment of arrears for jobs completed since 2024.
In early September, the All Indigenous Contractors Association of Nigeria protested at the Finance Ministry in Abuja, claiming more than N4 trillion was outstanding for certified 2024 capital projects.
The contractors also staged a protest at the National Assembly on November 5 to press home their demands, disrupting vehicular movement, plenary, and committee activities at the complex.
The National President of the All Indigenous Contractors Association of Nigeria, Jackson Nwosu, said the group had no choice after meetings with top Federal Government officials to resolve the issue yielded no result.
