The Senate has queried the National Examination Council (NECO) over allegedly awarding N6.5 billion contracts without adherence to due process.
The contracts are the printing of security and non-security documents by the examination’s body.
Recall that on Wednesday last week, the Senate gave NECO a 24-hour ultimatum to show payment of N7.2 billion examination materials between January and June 2017.
The Senate committee chairman on public accounts, Matthew Urhoghide gave the ultimatum following the report of the auditor-general of the federation (AGF), Adolphus Aghughu.
The AGF’s report alleged that examination materials in the sum of N7.2 billion were paid for between January and June 2017 without evidence of receipts of the items.
While responding to the query when he appeared before the lawmakers, the NECO registrar, Godswill Obioma claimed that NECO examination materials were sensitive items that were kept closely and guarded in order to avoid leakages.
While issuing the query recently, the committee chairman, Matthew Urhoghide said the action hinged on the 2017 report of the Office of auditor-general of the federation, which was submitted to the parliament for consideration.
Urhoghide hinted that in the report submitted to them by the auditor-general, the agency was unable to present any record to show that approval was granted for the contract in the first contract that cost about N451 million.
The lawmaker also said that in the second contract that cost about N6.1 billion, no quotations were collected from the three bidders, adding that taxes were not deducted from some of the contract payments.
According to him, “There was no technical and flinancial 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 and the contracts were split as some contracts were awarded to same contractor with LPO and work order issued on the same date.”
The query reads, “Examination of records and documents revealed that the Commission’s Tenders Board approved the award of contract for printing of security materials in the sum of ₦451 million 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 which 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 ₦250 million while any sum above this, is to be referred to the Ministerial Tenders Board for approval.
“We sought for the authority for the above approval including the Ministerial approval but none was provided.
“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.”
In his response, the NECO’s registrar, Godswill Obioma explained that payments were made to Data Science Nigeria Limited for the supply of optical mark readers for objectives questions paper for various examinations conducted by the council.
The registrar, however, failed to justify the payment for the contract before the lawmakers as the committee sustained the query against the examination body and asked for the refund.
The second query reads, “Examination of contracts awarded for the printing of Security and Non- Security Documents valued at ₦6,166,405,407.42 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. iii. 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.”
Responding to the N6.1 billion query, Obioma said, “The contracts for the printing for our questions are awarded through selective tendering. This is the case to avoid leakages of our examinations and award of contract to printers of doubted integrity.”
