Senate Queries NECO over Alleged Award of N6.5bn Contracts Without Due Process

 

 

The Senate has queried the National Examination Council (NECO) over an alleged award of contracts worth N6.5 billion without due process.

It also mandated its Committee on Public Accounts to probe the reported illegal contract awards.

The contracts were for the printing of security and non-security documents by the examination body.

The committee was guided by the 2017 report the Office of Auditor General of the Federation (OAuGF) submitted to the parliament for consideration in issuing two queries to the NECO.

According to the auditor general’s report showed that the examination body could not present any record to show that approval was given for the contract by the ministerial tenders board in the first contract that cost about N451 million.

The committee also alleged that due process was not followed in the second contract, which was worth N6.1 billion.

It further alleged that quotations were not collected from three bidders as required by Public Procurement Act (PPA) 2017 while taxes were not deducted from some of the contract payment.

Taxes were not deducted from some of the contract payments and there was no Technical and Financial evaluation.

The query reads: “Examination of records and documents revealed that the commission’s tenders board approved the award of contract for printing of security materials in the sum of ₦451 million to a company in March 2017 in contravention of provisions of Federal Government Circular No.SGF/OP/I/S.3/XI/849 of January 16, 2016, which reiterated the approved revised thresholds for service wide application, for which the Parastatal Tender Board can only exercise authority on works whose value is less than ₦250 million while any sum above this, is to be referred to the Ministerial Tenders Board for approval.

“We sought for the authority for the above approval including the ministerial approval but none was provided.

“The above unilateral award of contracts without following due process may lead to awarding contracts to unqualified contractors. Recommendation: The Registrar/CEO should be sanctioned in line with provisions of Financial Regulation 3117. “

However, in his response, the Registrar of the NECO, Professor Godswill Obioma, explained to the committee that the said N461 million “were payments to Data Science Nigeria Limited for the supply of Optical Mark Readers for objectives questions paper for various examinations conducted by the council.”

However, Obioma’s explanation could not dissuade the committee, which sustained the query on the ground that the council could not provide evidence of approval from the Ministerial Tenders Board before awarding contracts beyond its threshold.

The second query reads: “Examination of contracts awarded for the printing of Security and Non- Security Documents valued at ₦6,166,405,407.42 revealed that the contracts were awarded without compliance with the provisions of Part VI, Section 24 (I) of the Public Procurement Act (PPA) 2017 as amended, which states that except as provided by this Act, all procurements of goods and works by all procuring entities shall be conducted by open competitive bidding.

“The following irregularities were also noted, quotations were not collected from three bidders as required by PPA 2007 but the taxes were not deducted from some of the contract payments.

“There was no technical and financial evaluation, Evidence of placement of advertisement was not attached to either payment vouchers or contract files. The amount expended was above the threshold of the Council, The contracts were split as some contracts were awarded to the same contractor with LPO and work order issued on the same date.”

Obioma said in his response to the second query that “the contracts for the printing of our questions were awarded through selective tendering. This is the case to avoid leakages of our examinations and award of contract to printers of doubted integrity.”

But, the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Urhoghide, sustained the query because the registrar was unable to defend the query.