FG owes construction companies N500bn - FOCI

Construction companies in Nigeria have said that they are being owed N500 billion by the Federal Government.

This was disclosed by the President of the Federation of Construction Industry (FOCI), Solomon Ogunbusola to Vanguard.

Ogunbusola said further that the situation had rendered Nigeria’s construction sector comatose.

“The Federal Ministry of Works alone is owing our members N500 billion and one company is owed over N70 billion. The records are there. We cannot keep quiet or hide any longer,” he said.

“All construction companies in Nigeria are being owed huge sums of money amounting to over N500 billion. We all being owed and to further stoke our grievances the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is urging banks to publish the names of our members who took loans from the banks and are being owed for projects that they had long completed as chronic debtors,” he added.

“The name of the government that owed the construction companies should also be published. Let the banks publish the names of our members along with that of the Federal Ministry of Works, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and area councils owing us as chronic debtors. It is because they could not pay our members that they, in turn, could not pay the banks,” Ogunbusola said.

He also said that the companies are now being forced to sack employees due to their inability to recoup monies spent.