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Jonathan awards N927b contracts in 10 months, Niger Delta gets N247b contract sum

By on July 22, 2012

Investigation has revealed that Contracts worth N927bn have been awarded by President Goodluck Jonathan in ten months of his 13 months presidency.

The contract figures which are found in a document titled,” Federal Executive Council Approved Contract” showed details of how Jonathan’s government had awarded contracts since he stepped into office.

Investigation into contract awards shows that between August 10, 2011 and June 13, 2012 over N927bn contracts were awarded by the Federal Executive Council.

The Senate had in February asked questions on the legality of contracts awarded by Federal Executive Council since Jonathan stepped in as the president.

In a detailed analysis of Jonathan led administration’s contracts, it became quite clear that only in November, 2011,t N470bn worth of contracts was awarded, and it’s being considered the highest ever in any month.

Other outrageous 2011 contracts were the N10.76bn awarded in August 2011 while in September about N72.89bn contracts were also awarded; October had over N94.97bn; and  December sprang up to  N128.34bn.

In 2012, January contract award was N27.23bn; February N16.62bn, April N74.47bn, and May N30.40bn.

The most shocking of the news is that out of the entire contracts awarded, the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs got a huge chunk of the with a contract of about N246bn.

The N246bn contract that was awarded to Setraco Nigeria Limited on August 10 2011, were to be completed within 28 months.

The contract’s documents shows that the total sum was meant to complete the construction of sections 1 and 2 of the East-West road spanning Warri, Rivers and Bayelsa.

In a similar case, the Ministry of Work within almost the same period had awarded contracts worth N144bn for three major projects, while over N70.2bn contracts were awarded by the Federal Capital Territory Administration.

For the FCTA, the provisions of infrastructure at Kubwa and Karshi would gulp N42bn and N28.2bn respectively.

The two  contracts were awarded to SCC Nigeria Limited and expected to be completed within the period of 24 months and 20 months in that accordingly.

However, delay, capacity of government to execute contracts, and other issues have  raised different questions in relation to the legality of these contracts.

Bunu in his report had noted, “We take no joy in confirming that there is indeed evidence of large scale, widespread institutional mediocrity, deficiency of vision and a lack of direction in project management, which result in poor conceptualisation, poor design and faulty execution.

“It is needless to add that, this has resulted in avoidable losses of billions of Naira to the Federal Government.”

The Director-General of Bureau of Public Procurement, Mr. Emeka Eze, had stated in a forum in May 2012 affirmed that his agency had deducted N313bn from strict verifications of MDAs project proposals, since its establishment.

According to Eze “The sum of N313bn has been saved by the Bureau of Public Procurement for the Federal Government since the implementation of the Public Procurement Act, 2007 began,” .

In a similar vein, Okogu, while speaking with members of Civil Society Organization , said it will be very difficult to do any new projects in 2013, considering the different projects that are scattered all over and uncompleted.

He had said, “The fiscal consolidation efforts would be sustained because there is need for prudence in the management of public financial resources.

“Given resource constraints, we have proposed a strategy in allocating capital vote and no new project will be allowed in the 2013 budget.

“Some MDAs with large debts may not receive capital votes as their allocation will be used to pay off their debt.

“There are about 6,300 projects that are presently ongoing nationwide and we need about N7trn to finish these and you really cannot run a fiscal system in this manner.”

The National Assembly has at the moment spoken against this development, saying it was outrageous.

According to the House, in spite of “Trillions of Naira appropriated for capital projects since 1999, there was no evidence that the funds were used judiciously”

The House has as result vowed to look into the matter, asking the Federal Government to make available before it all contract details. This was directed to the table of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim.