The Senate has sustained a query issued against the National Examination Council by the Auditor-General for the Federation, for allegedly awarding N6.5bn contracts without following due process.<\/p>\n
The query is contained in the AuGF 2017 report already being considered by the Senate Public Accounts Committee.<\/p>\n
The contracts, according to the AuGF, involved the printing of security and non-security documents by the examination body.<\/p>\n
The Chairman of SPAC, Senator Matthew Urhoghide, while sustaining the query at the sitting of the panel on Thursday, said the NECO management did not sufficiently defend the contract award process.<\/p>\n
The AuGF report had also indicated that the agency was unable to present relevant records to show that approval was granted for the contract by the Ministerial Tenders Board in the first contract totalling N451m.<\/p>\n
In the second contract which is about N6.1 bn, the AuGF said quotations were not collected from three bidders as required by the Public Procurement Act 2007.<\/p>\n
It also stated that taxes were not deducted from some of the contract payments.<\/p>\n
The report partly read, \u201cTaxes were not deducted from some of the contract payments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no technical and financial evaluation. Evidence of placement of advertisement was not attached to either payment vouchers or contract files.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe amount expended was above the threshold of the Council and the contracts were split as some contracts were awarded to the same contractor with LPO and work order issued on the same date.<\/p>\n
\u201cExamination of records and documents revealed that the Commission\u2019s Tenders Board approved the award of contract for the printing of security materials in the sum of \u20a6451m 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Circular 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 \u20a6250m while any sum above this, is to be referred to the Ministerial Tenders Board for approval.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe sought for the authority for the above approval including the ministerial approval but none was provided.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe above unilateral award of contracts without following due process may lead to awarding contracts to unqualified contractors.\u201d<\/p>\n
The AuGF, therefore, recommended that \u201cthe Registrar\/CEO (of NECO) should be sanctioned in line with provisions of Financial Regulation 3117.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NECO\u2019s Registrar\/CEO, Prof. Godswill Obioma in his response before the Committee on the issue of N461m said, \u201d These are payments to Data Science Nigeria Limited for the supply of Optical Mark Readers for objectives questions paper for various examinations conducted by the Council.\u201d<\/p>\n
The committee sustained the queries on the grounds that NECO could not provide evidence of approval from the Ministerial Tenders Board before awarding contracts beyond its threshold.<\/p>\n
The second query read, \u201cExamination of contracts awarded for the printing of Security and Non- Security Documents valued at \u20a66,166,405,407.42 revealed that the contracts were awarded without compliance with the provisions of PART VI, Section 24 (I) of the Public Procurement Act 2007 as amended.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe PPA Act 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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, there was no technical and financial evaluation.<\/p>\n
\u201cOthers are, Evidence of placement of advertisement was not attached to either payment vouchers or contract files while the amount expended was above the threshold of the Council.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe contracts were split as some contracts were awarded to same contractor with LPO and work order issued on the same date.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also in his response to the N6.1bn query, the Registrar said, \u201cThe contracts for the printing of our questions are awarded through selective tendering.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the case to avoid leakages of our examinations and award of contract to printers of doubted integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Senate has sustained a query issued against the National Examination Council by the Auditor-General for the Federation, for allegedly awarding N6.5bn contracts without following due process. The query is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":80946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n