South East breaking News
Secondus Laments Lack Of Fund To Complete Secretariat
The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party , Uche Secondus , has said paucity of funds was responsible for the delay in the completion of the party’ s N 16 bn new national secretariat in Abuja .
Secondus , who spoke through his media aide , Ike Abonyi , in an interview with our correspondent on Tuesday , however, said the multiple -storeyed building project had not been abandoned.
He said it would be completed as soon as funds were available .
He said , “ The secretariat is not an abandoned project . Funding challenges stalled the work .
The project is dear to the party, the National Working Committee and the National Executive Committee . Work will resume soon subject to availability of funds. ”
The 12 – storeyed building , located at the Central Business District , Abuja , has remained uncompleted 11 years after the conception of the project by the leaders of the party.
It was learnt that the project , which was expected to have been completed within 126 weeks, at an initial cost of N 11 . 5 bn , was conceived in 2008 by the fourth national chairman of the PDP , Ahmadu Ali.
Our correspondent gathered that as a result of construction variations over the years, the cost of the project , which was awarded to BNL Limited , increased from N 11 . 5 bn to N 16 bn .
It was also learnt that shortly after the conception of the project , about N 6 bn was realised during a fund- raising .
Our correspondent further gathered that the PDP had , in December 2014 , realised N 21 bn at its fund raising dinner .
Dignitaries that attended the event included the then President Goodluck Jonathan; Vice President , Namadi Sambo, the then PDP Board of Trustees ’ Chairman , the late Chief Tony Anenih , and the then PDP National Chairman , Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu .
Sources told our correspondent that the Chairman of the 2014 fund raising committee , Prof Jerry Gana , had on January 5 , 2015 said the funds raised were not only for the 2015 presidential campaign , but that part of it would be used to complete the secretariat .
However, our correspondent who visited the project observed that a lot of work still needed to be done to complete it .