The director general of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA),
\nEngineer Mustapha\u00a0 Yunusa\u00a0 Maihaja, has been breaching Public Procurement
\nAct by awarding contracts to companies that do not meet legal requirements
\nand non existing companies, the House of Representatives\u00a0 has discovered.<\/p>\n
This disclosure was made at the resumed investigative public hearing
\norganised by the committee on the violation of public trust in National
\nEmergency Management Agency.<\/p>\n
The lawmakers noted that documents before the committee which were made
\navailable to the director general in the hearing, clearly showed that
\nmajority of the companies approved by the agency to undergo contracts were
\nin breach of the Procurement Act to the extent that one of the companies,
\nThree Brothers, is not registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission.<\/p>\n
They also discovered from documents presented to the committee by the
\nNational Pension Commission that most of the companies were defaulters in
\nremittance of pension, defaulters in tax payment as submitted by the
\nFederal Inland Revenue Service to the committee, and do not operate ITF.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, the committee observed that the DG of NEMA had been exceeding
\nhis approval limit for contracts without due approval by the presidency.<\/p>\n
Speaking in his defense, NEMA DG presented a Certificate of No Objection
\nobtained from the Bureau Of Public Procurement (BPP) as proof that all due
\nprocess procedures were followed before the contracts were awarded.<\/p>\n
This, however, was rejected by members of the Committee who explained that
\nthere are documents that clearly show the breaches in question whose
\nauthenticity have not been contested, and therefore, the BPP must have
\ncleared the contracts in error.<\/p>\n
The lawmakers also expressed reservation over the exemption of the
\ndirector general in the suspension of personnel of the agency over
\nallegations of corruption.<\/p>\n
They said it was puzzling that the director general, who was also listed
\namong the list of people allegedly involved in corrupt activities and
\ndefrauding Nigerians, has been allowed to continue superintending over the
\naffairs of the agency.<\/p>\n
The committee noted that due to the absence of the suspended personnel,
\nespecially the director of Finance and accounts, certain information
\nrequired by the House will not be available, and therefore, the DG must
\nappear with them for tomorrow\u2019s hearing.<\/p>\n
Going further, they questioned the speed with which the affected staff
\nwere suspended based on a report purportedly emanating from the governing
\ncouncil of NEMA is questionable because the council was inaugurated on the
\n3rd of April, considered the report of the EFCC on corruption allegations
\non the same day and recommended the suspension of the director of Finance
\nand Accounts; acting director, Special Duties; deputy director, Welfare;
\ndirector, Disaster Risk; head of Special Air Operation Unit and the chief
\nmaintenance officer.<\/p>\n
Out of all the suspended staff, the Finance and Accounts director was
\nimmediately replaced by the DG who requested the BPP to send a
\nreplacement. The replacement resumed the next day after the suspension.<\/p>\n
Other areas which the committee made disclosures include the failure of
\nthe agency to respond swiftly to emergencies across the country even after
\nreceiving funds for relief materials for affected persons, the House of
\nRepresentatives has discovered. It took a range of 6 months to one year
\nfor people and communities who were in emergency situations to get relief
\nfrom NEMA, even in many cases where funds were readily available.<\/p>\n
This followed the inability of Engineer\u00a0 Maihaja\u00a0 to explain why after
\nreceiving N1.6 billion from the federal government for emergency relief in
\nJuly 2017 for flood victims, the agency failed to provide relief materials
\nto affected people and areas until December, 2017, six months after the
\nincidents took place in 16 states across the country, when it started
\ndistribution.
\n..ends..<\/p>\n
The director general of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Engineer Mustapha\u00a0 Yunusa\u00a0 Maihaja, has been breaching Public Procurement Act by awarding contracts to companies that do not meet legal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n