The Senate has begun a probe into the approval of contracts value at N6.1 billion by examination body, the National Examination Council (NECO).
According to the Senate, NECO failed to follow “due process” in the approval of those contracts, as the “unilateral” move could lead to the allocating of those contracts to “unqualified contractors”.
The probe into NECO was launched by the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, under the leadership of Matthew Urhoghide, referencing a report compiled by the Office of the Auditor-General.
Sharing what was documented, the Red Chamber noted that the examination body approved a separate contract to the tune of N451 million to a company in 2017 which was contrary to the provisions of Circular No.SGF/OP/I/S.3/XI/849 of January 16, 2016
It added, “The circular reiterated that 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 N250 million, while any sum above this, is to be referred to the Ministerial Tenders Board for approval.
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“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.”
Defending the actions of the examination body, the Registrar, NECO, Godswill Obioma, said, “These are payments to Data Science Nigeria Limited for the supply of optical mark readers for objective question papers for various examinations conducted by the Council.”
The Senate Committee added, in its probe, that the “Examination of contracts awarded for the printing of security and non- security documents valued at N6,166,405,407.42 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.
“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.”
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