Don't Miss


Home   >   Goverment   >   FEC approved N1.43tn contracts in 2014

FEC approved N1.43tn contracts in 2014

By on March 23, 2015

The Federal Executive Council in 2014 approved a total of N1.43tn for various contracts in 12 government agencies.

The amount is about N900m or 6.72 per cent higher than N1.35tn which the council approved in the 2013 fiscal year.

The 2014 contract figure was obtained by our correspondent on Friday from a document prepared by the Bureau of Public Procurement.

The government agencies that got the approvals in 2014 are the ministries of Power; Federal Capital Territory; Labour and Productivity and the Presidency/Ecological Fund office.

Others are the ministries of Water Resources; Works; Transport; Agriculture and Natural Resources; Special Duties and Inter-Governmental Affairs; Niger Delta Affairs; Industry, Trade and Investment; and Environment.

The council, chaired by President Goodluck Jonathan, is the highest decision making body in Nigeria and is responsible for taking decisions that affect different parts of the country.

A breakdown of the figure showed that the sum of N40.46bn was approved for five government agencies in the first quarter, while four ministries got N123.31bn in the second quarter.

For the third and fourth quarters, the document stated that the sums of N286.25bn and N983.7bn were approved for various ministries, respectively.

A further analysis also showed that for the first quarter, the FCT with N240.24bn got the highest approval while the Presidency/Ecological Fund and the Ministry of Power with N10.16bn and N1.94bn followed, respectively.

For the second quarter, the Ministry of Water Resources with a total contract of N104.37bn got the highest contract approval while Works with a contract approval of N15.66bn followed.

The report also revealed that for the third quarter, the Ministry of Works recorded the highest contract approval with a total amount of N193.63bn while the Ministry of Power followed with a local contract approval of N34.019bn and a foreign contract approval of $22,394,052.

A breakdown of the fourth quarter figure also showed that the Ministry of Niger Delta had the lion’s share of the contracts with N509.2bn.

The ministry was followed by the Ministry of Works which got N260.9bn.

Some of the big contracts awarded during the period were the dualisation of the East-West Road Project Section I (Warri-Kaiama I in Delta State) and Section II: Subsection II-I (Port-Harcourt-Ahoada) in Rivers State and Subsection II-II (Ahoada-Kaiama) in Rivers/Bayelsa states awarded in the sum of N269.4bn.

The contract, which was awarded to Setraco Nigeria Limited on October 22 2014, has a duration period of seven months.

Others included the contract for the evacuation of 40 megawatts to be generated from Kashimbilla Hydropower Station which was awarded by the Ministry of Power to the SCC Nigeria Limited at a cost of N31.29bn.

The project with a duration of 18 months would be located in Taraba State and was awarded on August 20, 2014.

Another notable contract was the dualisation of the 40 kilometre Lokoja-Benin Road Section 1: Obajana Junction-Okene in Kogo State, which was awarded to the CGC Nigeria Limited by the Ministry of Works as the implementing agency at a revised contract sum of N30.56bn.

The contract awarded on September 17, 2014, was to be funded from the 2014 Appropriation Act.

The Director-General, the BPP, Mr. Emeka Ezeh, had said the agency saved a total of N95bn in 2014 through cost reduction from contracts submitted by contractors for various Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government.

Eze stated that the amount was from the difference between what the contractors and service providers had submitted to execute projects and what the bureau approved.

He said the effective implementation of the procurement act had led to the reduction in corrupt practices in the procurement process.

He said, “Last year, the BPP saved FG about N95bn through cost reduction of contract sums. This is part of the stories that a lot of Nigerians are not hearing about.

“But I can tell you that the government is doing a lot to prevent corruption.”

He added that the government was deploying institutions that would stop as much corruption as possible.

 

[Punch]