The Senate has queried the National Examination Council over allegedly fraudulently awarding N6.5 billion contracts without due process.
The contracts in the question are the printing of security and non-security documents by the examination’s body.
The Committee chaired by Senator Mathew Urhoghide hinged the query on the 2017 report of the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation submitted to the parliament for consideration.
According to the Auditor General, the agency was unable to present any record to show that approval was granted for the contract by the ministerial tender board in the first contract that cost about N451 million.
In the second contract that cost about N6.1 billion, quotations were not collected from three bidders as required by PPA 2007, taxes were not deducted from some of the contract payment. 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 and the contracts were split as some contracts were awarded to same contractor with LPO and work order issued on the same date.
The query read, “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 16th January, 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 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. “
The NECO’s Registrar, Prof. Godswill Obioma, in his response before the Committee on the issue of N461 million said, ” These are payments to Data Science Nigeria Limited for the supply of Optical Mark Readers for objective questions paper for various examinations conducted by the Council.”
The committee sustained the queries on the ground that the Council could not provide evidence of approval from the Ministerial Tenders Board before awarding contracts beyond its threshold.
Also the second query read, “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, taxes were not deducted from some of the contract payments. iii. 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 same contractor with LPO and work order issued on the same date.”
Also responding to the N6.1 billion query, he said, “The contracts for the printing for our questions are 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 sustained the query because the Registrar was unable to defend the query.
