By IDONGESIT ASHAMERI

A group of contractors in Akwa Ibom State have decided to embark on an indefinite hunger strike to protest the failure of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to pay them for contracts executed.

The group says the commission has failed to make payment for the renovation of school classroom blocks which they executed two years ago.

Arising from a general meeting on Monday, the group called “Akwa Ibom State NDDC School Renovation Contractors’ Association,” resolved to start the hunger strike from Thursday, September 3, 2020.

They also agreed to explore the legal option and to embark on street protests in Uyo, Port Harcourt and Abuja to press home their demand.

The group decried a situation where they have been left out of recent payments made by the NDDC despite repeated assurances by the Interim Management Committee (IMC) of the commission to pay contractors with less than N20 million contract sums.

They lamented that they have incurred huge debts as a result of the contracts which they executed to NDDC specifications with loans without any form of mobilization from the commission in 2018.

According to the group, comprising of 140 members, they have suffered untold hardship and harassment in the hands of creditors with two of them already dead, many critically ill as a result and some dragged to an anti-graft agency because of default in the payment of loans taken to execute the contracts.

The group stated that they have complied with every directive of the NDDC including the verification exercise in January 2020 since the contracts were awarded them in September 2017.

They noted the statement made by the Minister for Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, during the public hearing by the House of Representatives recently that “it is important that people who have gone to court, people who genuinely did jobs should be paid for their jobs” and appealed to him to prevail on the NDDC IMC to effect their payment in the light of their precarious situation and their faithfulness in the execution and completion of the contracts.

The group also appealed to The Presidency and the National Assembly to come to their aid. (Text, excluding headline, courtesy Daily Independent