Fourth Mainland Bridge: LASG Picks W/Bank Blacklisted Chinese Firm

By Fola James

CCECC Nigeria Limited, a Chinese construction company blacklisted by the World Bank for sharp practices is among other construction firms from the Peoples’ Republic of China that the Lagos State government has shortlisted for the construction of the Fourth Mainland Bridge.

The state government announced yesterday that 10 construction firms have been picked among companies that indicate interest in the contract, to be built on the Build, Operate and Transfer arrangement.

Apart from the CCECC, others are CGGC-CGC Joint Venture; China Harbour Engineering Company Limited; China State Construction Engineering Corporation Nigeria Limited; IC ICTAS Insaat Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. and Ingenieros Consultores, S.A., through Makais Energy.

They also include Julius Berger Nigeria Plc; Mota-Engil and CCCC Consortium; Mutual Commitment Company Limited and Power Construction Corporation of China.

”Following the issuance of request for qualification to the 32 shortlisted and eligible respondents to the expression of interest, we are pleased to announce that the Lagos State Government has received a total of 10 responses to the request for qualification (the applications) from the applicants,” the Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu-led government said yesterday in a statement.

Some of the companies will later qualify for the selection and bidding process, the government said.

Recall that CCECC and other five Chinese firms were in August 2019 barred by the World Bank from handling any of its project.

The companies were described as corrupt after violating the bank’s fraud and corruption policy.

The Bank, consequently, debarred and declared the firms ineligible to be awarded any World Bank-financed contracts for at least a year, between June 4, 2019 and March 3, 2020.

The CCECC is one of the many Chinese construction companies that have been awarded choice, multi-billion naira contracts by many state governments, including Lagos and federal government.

The contracts span railway and road construction across the country.

The companies have been trenchantly criticized for bribing government officials to get such contracts.

In some cases, they have performed shoddy jobs, while some contracts awarded to them have been abandoned midway to the projects.

Premium Times had in a 2018 report, detailed how CCECC was enmeshed in a scholarship award scam alongside some senior government officials, including ministers

Some government officials involved in the scam were the then Minister of State for Education, Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Minister of State for Power, Works and Housing, Jigawa State Governor, Minister of Transportation, and the Deputy Chief of Staff at the Presidential Villa.