The Independent and Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) said on Monday that it has started the second phase of project tracking across the country.
It said following the success recorded in the first phase of the constituency and executive projects tracking exercise conducted in 12 states of the federation in 2019, the Commission is set to begin the implementation of the second phase.
The exercise, which is scheduled to commence Tuesday (today) 23rd June 2020 in 16 states, namely: Cross River, Taraba, Ekiti, Ogun, Gombe, Nasarawa, Kebbi, Kwara, Jigawa, Abia, Delta, Ebonyi, Niger, Rivers, Oyo, and Kaduna, will focus on the following sectors: Health, Education, Water Resources, Agriculture, and Power.
Some of the objectives of the tracking exercise are to investigate fraudulent procurement practices in the award of contracts for constituency and executive projects; make recoveries on projects or contracts confirmed to have been inflated or in which contractors under-performed or did not perform at all, and track contracting companies for all statutory compliance.
The Commission in 2019 launched the pilot phase of the exercise in which it tracked projects performance from 2015 to 2019 in 12 states. Successes of the exercise included the recoveries of tractors, ambulances, dialysis machines, and other hospital equipment from sponsors of the projects across the pilot states.
The successes also included the recovery of huge sums of money, hundreds of tricycles, grinding machines and other empowerment items from the project sponsors.
Furthermore, the exercise forced contractors who hitherto had abandoned projects to return to the site to complete them.
“ICPC is again set to take the exercise to states not covered in the pilot phase with the aim of ensuring that government gets value in the execution of public projects, and improved delivery of social welfare services to the citizens. Just as the first phase, the project tracking will be done in collaboration with the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS), Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Media, Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) and other stakeholders,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, The anti-graft body has arraigned a former lecturer with the Waziri Ummaru Federal Polytechnic, Birnin Kebbi.
Mohammed Sani Nuhu was said to have been arraigned in court for allegedly defrauding the school of N6m
ICPC, in a four-count charge, filed before Justice Usman Hassan of the Kebbi State High Court, accused Nuhu of abuse of office when he allegedly diverted N6m meant for attending a conference and paying for his post-graduate studies, into personal use.
Counsel to ICPC, Mashkur Salisu, told the court that his offence violated Section 19 of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000, and Section 311 of the Penal Code.
The court heard that the former lecturer was given N6m grant by the Polytechnic in 2017, to enable him to attend an international conference in The United Kingdom and also pursue a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) programme in Malaysia.
He was alleged to have failed to attend the conference as well as declined to embark on the postgraduate studies after he was paid.
The accused pleaded not guilty when the charge was read to him. His counsel, S. M. Danyaro, prayed the court to grant him bail on liberal terms.
Counsel to ICPC, who did not oppose the bail application, however, prayed the court to grant him bail on terms that would enable the accused to attend trial without fail.
Justice Hassan, while ruling on the bail application, granted the accused bail in the sum of N100, 000 and surety in like sum. The surety must be of good character and resident in Kebbi State.
