Contractors Still Being Owed For 2024, 2025 Constituency Projects- Rep
A member of the House of Representatives, Chinedu Obika, has revealed that contractors handling constituency projects under the scheme are being owed on jobs dating back to 2024.
The lawmaker, who represents the AMAC/Bwari Federal Constituency of the Federal Capital Territory, made the disclosure during an interview on KAA Truths posted on Thursday.
Obika said constituency allocations approved for lawmakers had been budgeted twice but never released.
“The president has released — through the budget — one billion twice for us. Budgeted and approved by the Assembly but not implemented — zero implementation. People are still being owed on 2024 contracts, 2025 contracts.”
The lawmaker said the situation had discouraged contractors from bidding for constituency projects, since payment was no longer guaranteed to everyone whose contract had been approved.
“If you bring a constituency project now, people are running away from the contracts because payment is selective, only a few are paid,” he said.
Obika described the non-implementation of budgeted allocations as one of the most troubling aspects of the current administration’s handling of governance, and said unpaid obligations had piled up across successive budget years.
“One thing I’m very unhappy about with this government is non-implementation of the budget. We have 2025 — I’ve talked about 2024 that was moved. Some of them are still not being paid.
“We have 2024, that is supplementary. But you know, we came in 2023, we have 2024, we have supplementary in 2024, we have 2025, then we have ’26 that is there now,” he said.
He linked the funding gap to a wider trend of unpaid constituency obligations frustrating lawmakers’ ability to deliver projects to their constituents, even as public criticism of the National Assembly’s spending persisted.
“This is the first time constituency projects are being owed, government owes the people who carry out constituency projects; it isn’t done,” Obika said.
He added that the unpaid contracts had, in some cases, become a quiet instrument used to keep lawmakers from speaking out against the executive.
“That can turn to an instrument of shutting some of us up, because if you know there are jobs in your constituency that haven’t been paid for and contractors are unwilling to do such jobs, in one way or the other, somebody is essentially shutting you up so that you don’t talk too much,” he said.
