German Construction giants, Julius Berger Nigeria Limited says it is withdrawing from site in its section of the expansion of the East-West Road in the Niger Delta.
A top official of the company, who spoke in Abuja yesterday during an interactive session between four contractors handling the section one to four of the East-West Road and the Chairman, Senate Committee on Works, Senator Julius Ucha, said their decision to pull out was based on security threats.
“We just pulled out of site. We have to look for solutions on how to come back to the site. It is not our idea to abandon anything”, he said.
Julius Berger Nigeria Limited is handling the 100km section one of the East-West Road project at the cost of N87 billion.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Works, Senator Julius Ucha, said because of Julius Berger’s history in the country, the company should have a rethink.
“If there is any firm that is supposed to take risk for Nigeria, Julius Berger should rank number one”, he said.
Other companies handling other sections of the expansion work on East-West Road such as Setraco Nigeria Limited, RCC Nigeria Limited and GZ Nigeria Limited, said in spite of the fact that they expend an average of N20-N35 million per month on security, they were not pulling out.
They, however, regretted that non-implementation of the 2008 budget was seriously affecting their cash flow and payments for jobs done so far.