Dear Sir: Jul
ius Berger needs be investigated by the FIRS, if it (FIRS) is serious, because for Julius Berger to announce that it made only N5billion profit for year 2009 cannot be true. Even from (only) the over N150billion it has earned from Akwa Ibom State alone, talk less of other heavier contract-jobs here and there in Nigeria, the construction giant would have made profit of nothing less than N50billion (not only N5billion) it declared.
Julius Berger was recently accused by the National Assembly of exporting Nigeria’s mineral resources through illegal procedure. What the situation is with the matter as at today has disappeared from the public view. Recently, the Federal government was in court with Julius Berger over the company’s importation of contrabands into the country. In the last sitting of the court, Julius Berger feigned ignorance of any litigation against it by the Nigerian government; this sounds insulting and touches the sensibility of Nigerians. Julius Berger, the acclaimed construction giant is not all that giant in Germany, the company’s supposed home-country. At the early stage of constructing Abuja, an international foreign construction magazine had opined that the biggest construction site in the world was traced to the one being owned by Julius Berger in Abuja. The magazine was referring to the volume of space allotted to the company in Abuja and the amount of jobs they were handling at the same time. In spite of the above allegations, the federal government had recently awarded the construction company contract for PDTF headquarters at the cost of N10.5billion. The Government had also signed N33billion for the Ajaokuta-Warri rail line (Daily Independent November 20, 2009, page 3) to the same company she is in court with; company also livid with accusation by the National Assembly and other Nigerians. For Nigerian government officials being corrupt and probably Julius Berger and ilk as conduit pipe for their corrupt funds, one does not need to look to far for why Nigeria could not for these past years create indigenous construction giants by empowering potentials abound. All the so-called foreign construction giants we have in Nigeria were empowered by Nigerian governments as investigation shows they were not ‘giants’ per se originally from their respective home-countries. Obong Steve Udeme, 189 Bende Street, Umuahia, Abia State. uudeme86@yahoo.com
