By Gloria Ikibah
The House of Representatives has directed the Accountant-General of the Federation, Shamseldeen Ogunjimi, to provide a detailed breakdown of payments made to contractors under the N2.4 trillion already approved by government for project execution.
The directive followed confirmation from the Office of the Accountant-General that the payments had been cleared. Lawmakers, however, stressed that transparency was crucial to ensure the funds were tied to genuine and completed projects. 
Deputy Speaker and Chairman of the Ad-hoc Committee on Budget Implementation, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Okezie Kalu, said contractors must be held accountable for the quality of work delivered.
“Projects paid for must represent jobs well done, not just a piece of paper or a certificate of completion,”he told journalists after a marathon four-hour meeting in Abuja with the Association of Indigenous Contractors of Nigeria.
Naijablitznews.com reports that the committee was set up by Speaker Abbas Tajudeen after protests by contractors over months of unpaid fees.
Following an initial meeting on 4 September 2025, a temporary truce was reached and 25 per cent of outstanding payments was released. Sunday’s follow-up session served to review progress.
At the meeting, the Director of Funds in the Accountant-General’s office confirmed the N2.4 trillion approval and disclosed that Finance Minister Wale Edun had authorised an additional N760 billion for warrant and cash backing, raising the total commitment to around N3.1 trillion.
Kalu commended the government for making the payments despite prevailing economic pressures. He announced that the committee would reconvene on October 5, 2025, for further appraisal of the agreement between government and contractors.
Lawmakers emphasised that the ultimate goal was to prevent a repeat of situations where public funds were disbursed for projects that provided little or no benefit to citizens.
He said: “You may recall we had the first meeting on the 4th of Septembe, born out of the desire to attend to what took them to the streets, because they were protesting, blocking the Ministry of Finance. For days, they were on the streets and we needed to show them that we are the People’s Parliament, that what bothers them, bothers us. So, the House, in the wisdom of the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Tajudeen Abbas, PhD, decided that I should chair a committee, a special committee, to look at what was the issue with the payment of these contractors.
“So, we decided to use the instrument of legislative diplomacy to do an intervention, which actually worked. We succeeded in getting them out of the streets after so much negotiation on the phone, and we brought them here and hosted them with an invitation extended to the Ministry of Finance. The Minister of Finance was here himself. The Accountant General was here himself. The Permanent Secretary of Special Duties in the Ministry of Finance, all of them were here. And we were able to narrow the problem of the contractors into three areas.
“So, we decided that we’ll be gathering again in two weeks, which is today, to have an appraisal of how compliance has been done on both sides. Indigenous contractors of Nigeria are leaving the streets, not going back to the streets, and not protesting, and on the side of the government, taking steps to fulfill those three issues that we agreed to take care of.
“So, today, the Ministry of Finance was represented by the legal adviser, and the Accountant General’s office was represented by the Director of Funds, as well as the Chief of Staff to the Accountant General, only because the Minister of Finance and the Accountant General were invited to the Villa to take care of issues, also on the bid to proffer solutions to this problem that we ae handling. So they apologized but monitored the session through the phone.
“During the appraisal, we were able to find out that, according to them, 25% of the payments as agreed have been done within the two weeks, and they also said nothing has been done about the cash back and the warrant for the remaining months that they complained about, but they accepted that on the issue of batch numbers, the Ministry and the Accountant General have complied in full, 100% which means the batch number issue has been removed, 25% have been achieved within two weeks, and the cash back and the warrant was not handled.
“We invited the bureaucrats to respond to that, and they said, yes, they have about N2.4 trillion that was approved for payment, and out of this amount, they have paid up, leaving only 160 billion unpaid out of N2.4 trillion. It’s commendable by this government to have approved such an amount of money, and that in one year phase of our stress, economic stress, for the government to approve N2.4 trillion for payment of contractors is a great step towards the right direction, and I thank the President through the Minister of Finance.
“But in addition, he stated that approval has been granted for the third issue, which was the warrant and cash backing of the remaining months, which they said has not been taken care of, that was at zero percent level. So that also gladdened their heart that the administration, beyond approving what they requested, which was May and June cash backing and warrants, that the administration, through the Minister of Finance, has approved warrant and cash backing from May, June, July, August, even up to September, the month that we are in. And when they were asked for how much, they said they have about extra N760 billion approved to take care of what is outstanding within this, in addition to the N2.4 trillion, which is bringing it to about N3.1 something trillion.
“Within eight or nine months of this government, under the reform we are going through, and the stress we are going through, to be able to approve this amount of money for the payment of contractors shows that the government is a listening government. So, they left here today feeling satisfied that steps are being taken in the right direction, that we have not gotten there yet, but we are taking steps to get there.
“But one of the things I sent them with was my charge to the Accountant General’s office to give us the spreadsheet of those they have paid. We need to see how the government has paid N2.4 trillion, and see people who are still standing on the street saying that the government is not paying. It’s not giving the government a good image. How can we pay N2.4 trillion into the system and the same contractors are on the street? So, we want to verify and investigate to know whether these are the people who are paid, or the people who are claiming that they have worked.
“I gave them a charge also: on the part of the government, we are putting the pressure on government to pay up, but on their part, they should ensure that what the government is paying for is a job well done. The government is not paying for a piece of paper or a certificate of completion when the jobs are not done. We told them it would be wickedness to claim that a hospital has been built and lives have been lost because there’s no hospital to attend to people, that schools have been built when students are learning under trees, that roads, farm roads, have been built when post-harvest destruction is still on the increase because there’s no way to bring those things down.
“That was my charge to them, so that let us demand what we have worked for, because the principle of ‘let him that work, let him be paid’ should apply. But at the same time, we don’t want ‘monkey dey work, baboon dey chop’—people who have done nothing are paid, and people who are doing something are not paid.
“So, we want to be able to use our office, the instrument of legislature, to investigate that list and to find out that they are not complaining when they have been paid, or those who have been paid are not the ones that are supposed to be paid. That, we will find out in the course of two weeks. We have agreed to meet again on the 5th of October for another appraisal of our agreement. So, it’s like post-agreement scrutiny, both on the side of government and on the side of the contractors”.
