The House of
Representatives ad hoc committee on abandoned Projects in Niger Delta
has discovered that a total of 1,723 contractors had collected a total
of N70.495 billion without mobilising to the site.
Recall that at
last week sitting of the panel, the Auditor General of the Federation
(AuGF), had disclosed that N64.4 billion was wasted by the NDDC as
mobilisation fees on abandoned projects in the Niger Delta region.
But
the Accountant General of the Federation’s (AGF) Report submitted to
the ad hoc committee and obtained by Vanguard, shows that 1,723
contractors never went to the site after collecting N70,495,993,761
billion.
The report indicates that “90 per cent of these
contracts were awarded between 2011 and 2012. It needs to be
strengthened that some of these contractors have three to four jobs with
their mobilization payments without reporting to site”
It
further stated that “one can, therefore, imagine why the region is not
developed when a developmental programme is being awarded as a contract
to be completed within six months and the contractor would collect
mobilization without reporting to site.
“The report above
excluded those contractors that collected mobilization and reported to
the site but with insignificant achievement before abandoning the
projects. This equally excluded those in which the commission has
declared their projects as stalled.
“It is a common practice for
the commission’s contractors to collect mobilization and refuse to move
to site. The blame for this should not only go to the contractors but
equally to the management of NDDC, who awarded contracts that were not
in existence, that is contracts without identification of the site,
resulting to non-reporting to site by the contractor.
“Besides
the above, it was also observed that about 50 per cent of the
contractors who claimed they have executed their various contracts
specifications and completed with supporting engineers valuation
certificate were later found out by the team that some merely collected
money for work not executed”.
Details of the contracts show that
in Abia state, out of N17.641bn contract sum, N2.027bn was paid for 32
projects, in Akwa Ibom, N4.229bn paid out of N31.681bn contract for 64
projects; in Bayelsa N4.970bn paid out of N27.647bn contract for 80
projects; in Cross River, N2.065bn paid out of N13.451bn for 29
projects, while Delta has 99 projects for which N7.836bn has been paid
out of N31.765bn.
In Edo state, N2.065bn has been paid for 51
projects out of N13.927bn; in Imo, N1.859bn paid out for 33 projects out
of N13.184bn while Ondo and Rivers have 50 and 106 projects for which
N6.173bn and N13.146bn have been paid out of N29.977bn and N56.717bn
contracts respectively.
The report said “in the auditor’s
opinion, this ugly trend will continue in the system in as much as the
same class of people were recycling in the management and board of the
commission” Meanwhile, the governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN),
Mr Godwin Emefiele is to appear before the probe panel investigating
projects abandoned by the NDDC on Thursday. Chairman of the committee,
Hon. Ossai Nicholas Ossai confirmed this in a chat with newsmen
yesterday.
Ossai explained that though the CBN governor was to
appear before the committee on Tuesday, the letter of invitation was
delayed so the committee had to reschedule it to Thursday.
But it
was further gathered that there is pressure on the leadership of the
House to dissolve the investigating committee following the sordid
revelations coming out from the probe so far.
An insider in the
committee confided in our correspondent that some of the indicted
companies and contractors were using fronts to impress on the leadership
of the House to stop the committee from further probe.
“I can
confirm to you that the work of this committee has sent jitters to most
of the contractors and companies that either collected payments without
going to site or those who collected and later abandoned the sites and
they are running helter-skelter trying to use some people in the House
to influence the House leadership to dissolve the ad hoc committee. We
have heard rumours like this.
“But I know who the honourable
speaker Femi Gbajabiamila is; he will not listen to anybody that comes
with such a complaint, so we are not bothered. We are doing our job and
we have told the chairman not to be shaken but to remain resolute and I
can assure you, we will get to the root of this rot.
“It is a
shame that a commission that was established to redress the injustice
done to the Niger Delta region is being turned into a bazaar for sharing
contracts and not executing them. All Niger Delta indigenes involved in
this shameful and criminal acts should bow their heads in shame”, the
lawmaker stated.
No comments
Post a Comment