We would have our own magistrate court by October 2021 and would not have to travel for 30 minutes to seek justice, the people of Oredo and Egor Local Government Areas (LGA) in Edo state would have thought when the contracts for the construction of a magistrate court in Oredo and Egor LGA respectively were awarded on May 4th, 2021.
However, since then no specific location had been chosen for the construction of the magistrate court in Oredo, nor has any construction begun.
MacFranklyn Limited, the contractor in charge of the construction of the magistrate court in Oredo LGA informed the Dataphyte project monitoring team that the delay in the construction of the magistrate court was caused by the fact that the procuring ministry, Edo State’s Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development, has yet to show them a site in Oredo where they can begin construction. He stated that all efforts to have the ministry show them a location to begin construction have been futile.
Data from the Edo State Open Contracting Portal revealed that the contractor for the construction of the Oredo magistrate court was paid 117 million nairas as a mobilization fee for a project with no site location.
The contractor in charge of the construction of the magistrate court in Egor LGA, Sunamo Investment Limited, on the other hand, stated that work is only about to begin on the site after the recent acquisition of blocks, sand, and rods to begin the foundation construction.
He stated that the reason construction was delayed was that he was not immediately mobilized for the project as stated in the contract document. However, after spending time and more than N2 million to obtain an advance payment guarantee (APG), they were informed of a policy change that would require them to begin work without being paid a mobilization fee.
Data obtained from the Edo state Open Contracting Portal however shows that the project is 25% complete, and the contractor has been mobilized and paid 116.1 million naira to begin work.
The contractor, Sunamo Investment Limited, maintained that no money was paid to him as a mobilization fee for the construction of the magistrate court, as the payment would have been a motivator to begin the project.
Further investigation of the two projects’ descriptions as seen in the Edo state open contracting portal reveals that the contract sum was over 300 percent more than the initial budgeted amount, raising questions about the project’s planning and how the ministry hopes to cover up the project’s budget deficit. For example, 100 million was budgeted for the renovation of the magistrate court complex in Benin City but the contract description reads construction of magistrate court in Egor LGA for 464.7 million, resulting in a 364.7 million budget deficit.
Similarly, 100 million naira was budgeted for the renovation of the magistrate court complex in Benin City, while the contract description reads, 468.1 million naira for the construction of the magistrate court in Oredo LGA.
Before awarding the contract for the construction of the magistrate court in Oredo and Egor LGA, Edo state, people from Oredo and Egor usually travel to Ikpoba Okha for court hearings. However, because the magistrate court buildings are dilapidated and in poor condition, the court building in Ikpoba Okha had been insufficient for court hearings for a long time.
The courtrooms have insufficient seating and louvers. The rooms with seating had wooden benches or chairs with worn-out upholstery.
Users of the building told Dataphyte that when it rains, the courtrooms are usually flooded with water, making it impossible to hold hearings.
The magistrate court in Ikoba Okha has twelve courtrooms used by Ikpoba-Okha LGA, Oredo LGA, and Egor, all of which are neighboring LGAs separated by a few kilometers. Most of the time, due to the high volume of court sessions, two courts sit in one courtroom to accommodate all of the cases.
Cost of Delays in the Project Execution
Aside from the obvious strain on justice seekers in both local governments, who have to travel kilometers for court hearings, the cost of materials required to complete the project will continue to rise as a result of inflation, imposing additional costs on the government.
For example, Sunamo Investment Limited, the contractor in charge of the Egor LGA magistrate court’s construction has noted that the price of cement, rod, and other materials have increased significantly since the contract’s signing and will affect the initial contract sum that was agreed upon.