•Due Process Office too
•Over contracts award in foreign currency
•Committee to involve EFCC/ICPC on oversight tours
Written by Taiwo Adisa, Abuja Monday, 31 October 2011
THE Senate Committee on the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), headed by Senator Smart Adeyemi, has summoned the Minister of the FCT, Senator Bala Mohammed, and the Due Process Office to explain circumstances leading to the award of some contracts in the Idu district of the territory in foreign currencies.
The discovery was made on Saturday when the committee embarked on oversight tours of the projects.
According to the committee chairman, the minister is to explain why the ministry decided to award 70 per cent of the road contracts in the Idu district of Abuja, the capital territory, in euros.
He said that the committee discovered that only 30 per cent of the contracts were awarded in naira.
The minister is to further throw light on why the road contract was reviewed from the initial N3.17 billion to N6.09 billion.
The committee was told that the cost of the projects was initially put at N3.176 billion or 73 million euros, but that the contract was reviewed upwards and fixed at N6.093 billion or 186 millon Euros, while the amount paid to date, however, stands at N4.816 billion or 79 million euros.
Chairman of the committee, Senator Adeyemi, also disclosed during the oversight tour that his committee had decided to involve officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) in its oversight tour in order to expose Nigerian officials who collude with foreign companies to defraud the country.
Senator Adeyemi and his deputy, Domingo Obende, who spoke during the tour, queried award of the contracts in foreign currency. They announced that it was important the Senate clarify the true situation by summoning the FCT minister.
Senator Adeyemi, however, commended the FCT administration for the decision to develop the district, even as he insisted that the award of the contracts in foreign currency was unjustifiable.
He stated: “After over three hours tour of these projects, we are not happy that a contract of such magnitude was signed in foreign currency. It was uneconomical, retrogressive and unpatriotic.
“We shall ask the minister and his officials to come and explain why a contract worth over N1billion and which was varied to over N6 billion could be signed in foreign currency.
“Can any foreign company agree to sign contracts in their countries in naira? The action of the FCT government is not acceptable to us and we are going to report back to the Senate.
“There are lots of inexplicable things, which the ministry will have to explain to us. None of the contractors could justify why more than 20 per cent of the materials they were using were imported to the country.
“There is no justification to import electric poles, when we can produce them here. If they are not satisfied with the quality of the ones produced here, we can improve on them. And you cannot justify the variation of 70 per cent of the contract sums.”
He stated that the contractors handling the project as well as officials of the Due Process Office would also be invited to explain the approval given to the project.
via Tribune
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