Obi Aguocha, a lawmaker (LP-Abia), has called for the review of the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) to ensure speedy payment of contractors in the country. Aguocha, who is the chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Monitoring and Evaluation of House Standing and Ad hoc Committees, made the call in a statement on Saturday.
The GIFMIS is an IT-based system for budget management and accounting being implemented by the Federal Government to improve public expenditure.
He said that the recent protest by Concerned Local Contractors (CLC) and the threat of a similar protest by the All Indigenous Contractors Association of Nigeria (AICAN) were a clear signal that the system required urgent review.
Aguocha, who represents Ikwuano/Umuahia North/Umuahia South federal constituency of Abia, decried slow payments of contractors. The lawmaker said that AICAN’s records revealed that over 90 per cent of the projects executed and completed in 2024 remained unpaid.
According to him, this is forcing contractors to struggle with mounting bank loans and rising interest rates. Aguocha argued that if the system had failed to deliver the desired efficiency, there was nothing wrong with a review aimed at reducing the hardships and challenges faced by contractors.
“Non-payment of contractors not only erodes public trust in government’s ability to manage projects effectively but also delays execution, inflates costs, and places further strain on public resources.
“If urgent action is not taken, this prolonged issue will damage the reputation of both government and contractors, thereby undermining future collaboration. Contractors are reluctant to take up new assignments without assurances of timely payment.
“Projects already approved in the Appropriation Act risk delays or abandonment, and communities in dire need of infrastructure may be denied the benefits of government intervention,” he stated.
The legislator said that with only four months left in 2025, emphasis was still on settling 2024 project backlogs, saying that it undermined effective planning and disrupted the yearly budget cycle.
He noted that with only a quarter of 2025 remaining, 95 per cent of projects nationwide lacked sufficient funding for execution, raising questions about the $22 billion loan approved by the National Assembly for these projects.
“Project execution is the surest way of bringing dividends of democracy to the grassroots, and that everything must be done not to derail it. I am calling on the authorities concerned with managing the project funding to ensure the masses are not shortchanged through the non-release of funds for projects already earmarked in the 2024/2025 Appropriation Act for execution,” he said.
