By Taiye Odewale
Abuja
The Senate yesterday mandated its committee on Public Procurement to carry out comprehensive investigation on alleged contracts racketeering and inflation, two of which showed excess of N2.4 billion above approved contracts sums.
The upper legislative chamber also directed the committee to forward to it within one week, report of the probe exercise.
This was sequel to a motion moved to that effect by Senator Dino Melaye (APC Kogi West) on alleged irregularities in the award of contracts for the construction and rehabilitation of roads and bridges in the first and second batch forwarded to it by the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing vide letters dated 7th and 15th November 2016 as contained in the 2016 budget implementation.
Melaye in the motion titled: “Irregularities in the awards of contracts by the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP),” 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.
Acording to him, BPP in contravention of the Public Procurement Act went beyond its mandate to award contracts to companies not recommended by the procuring entity.
He specifically 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.”
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”.
He further informed that the recommended contract sums by the Ministry already high, ought to have been ordinarily reviewed downward, but BPP by its 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.
The Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu who seconded Melaye’s motion said 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.
He added that our procurement process needs to be sensitive to our seasons and cautioned that the investigation should not be allowed to disrupt ongoing contract execution.
“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 entering the rainy season this people 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) also gave a note of caution in his contribution, 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”.
The Senate President Bukola Saraki in his own remarks, stressed that the committee must urgently carry out the investigation and report back within a week.
It is unfortunate if decisions are taken by a handful of people in a room and they hand down that decision to us. It will not be in our best interest. I hope this will be a beginning of that movement. We should be able to sit together and structure how this forum will work.”
He said PDP has suffered many challenges since after 2015 and hoped that the party is beginning to see to the end of it.
While he said the PDP is still strong and present in all the nooks and cranny of the country, Ikimi stressed “leadership crisis in our party is about to come to an end and before it comes to an end we have to put our house in order.”
Some of the prominent politicians from the zone who attended the meeting witnessed by the Makarfi led National Caretaker Committee Secretary, Ben Obi and its Spokesman, Prince Dayo Adeyeye are: former minister of state for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro.
Other are former deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Emeka Ihedioha; Mulikat Abiola, Chief Raymond Dokpesi; former governorship candidate of the PDP in Lagos State, Jimi Agbaje; Stella Onu, Iyiola Omisore, Remi Adiukwu; Hon Mulikat Akande and Shuaibu Oyedekun.
