Home Business Fashola in trouble over inflated contracts

Fashola in trouble over inflated contracts

by Business News Report

Senate has asked its Committees on Public Procurement and Works to as a matter of urgency, investigate alleged irregularities in awards and the inflation of two contracts With excess of N2.4billion by the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola and the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP).

The Senate also directed the committee to forward the report of the probe within one week. The decision of the Senate came as a result of a motion moved by Senator Dino Melaye, APC, Kogi West on alleged irregularities in the award of contracts for the construction and rehabilitation of road and bridge projects in the first and second batch forwarded to it by the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing through letters dated 7th and 15th November 2016 as contained in the 2016 budget implementation.
In the motion titled: “Irregularities in the awards of contracts by the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Senator Melaye who alleged that BPP went beyond its mandates in the approval of contracts awards by the Ministry by not only inflating some of the contract sum, but also re-awarded them to different companies. He stressed that the BPP in contravention of the Public Procurement Act went beyond its mandate to award contracts to companies not recommended by the procuring entity.

Melaye said: “For instance, the procuring entity recommended Deux Project Ltd for the rehabilitation of Numan-Jalingo Road for N11.7billion; the BPP awarded the contract to Rock Bridge Construction Ltd at N12.8 billion which is N1.1billion in excess of the recommended amount.
He added that “While the Ministry of Works recommended the rehabilitation of Nenwe-Nomhe-Nburubu Nara road project to Don Machris Global Resources Ltd at N5.1billion, the BPP awarded it to Arab Contractors Nigeria Ltd at N6.4billion in excess of N1.3billion”.

Melaye informed Senators that the recommended contract sums by the Ministry was already high and ought to have been reviewed downward, but BPP by its unilateral action reviewed them upward and subsequently awarded them to companies not recommended by the procuring entity in flagrant violation of section 19 of the Public Procurement Act.

Presenting the motion, he said “Desirous to award contracts 10 and 13 projects for the construction and rehabilitation of road and bridge projects in the first and second batch of road and bridge projects contained in the Ministry’s 2016 budget implementation, the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing requested via a letter dated 15th November, 2016, the Bureau of Public Procurement for due process clearance to award contracts for 10 and 13 projects for the construction and rehabilitation under the 2016 budget implementation.

Melaye observed that the BPP in the exercise of its mandate informed the ministry that there was no objection to their requests, adding, “But later wrote back to the ministry that due process of “no objection” cannot be granted to the ministry in award of the said contracts.”

According to him, the BPP in contravention of the Public Procurement Act went beyond its mandate to award the contracts to companies not recommended by the procuring entity.

The Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu who seconded Melaye’s motion said that any committee assigned to look into the allegation should do a thorough job in finding out details of infractions between the Ministry and BPP as far as the contracts were concerned, just as he said that our procurement process needs to be sensitive to the present realities and cautioned that the investigation should not be allowed to disrupt ongoing contract execution.

He said, “Our procurement process needs to be sensitive to our season. Presently we are in dry season, so if contracts were awarded for road construction I believe that whatever investigation we are doing should not prejudice the continued performance of that contract because if we do it means that by the time we enter the rainy season the contractor will not be able to work again.

“ In the past some of our investigation stalled the work of government because if you recall the issue of the second runway was stalled because of the investigation we had here. The same thing happened to power sector reform. We were rolled back a couple of years because of the investigation in the House of Representatives on the power sector.”

Senator Barnabas Gemade (APC Benue North East) in his contribution, gave a note of caution saying the matter is very technical and must be handled by the committee very thoroughly and technically.

He said: “The first three companies appear to have a history of road building. The two that were initially recommended don’t seem to have obvious records but this is a matter which the committee on procurement should look into very carefully. I cautioned that technical issues should be considered very, very critically in looking at this matter”.

In his remarks, Senate President Bukola Saraki stressed that the committee must urgently carry out the investigation and report back within a week.

Related Posts