HOUSE of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts at the weekend subjected officials of the Federal Ministry of Works to intense interrogation and drilling over alleged irregularities in the award of two road contracts worth N3.3 billion.
Acting on queries raised by the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation on the two road projects, the Committee led by Solomon Adeola expressed concerns that one of the contracts, which was initially awarded at the cost of N77 million by the Nasarawa State government was later re-awarded at the cost of N2.3 billion by the Federal Ministry of Works.
The Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mr. Abubakar Mohammed led the ministry's delegation to the House of Representatives for the meeting.
Members of the Committee said that the N2.3 billion second cost of the contract was not justifiable because no additional work was made on the road project to make the cost rise from N77 million to N2.3 billion.
A former member of the House of Representatives, Nicholas Ukachukwu, whose name was mentioned in connection with the N2.3 contracts was immediately asked to appear before the committee next week for questioning.
The committee expressed shock on hearing that the contractor involved in the N2.3 billion project even took the Federal Government to court and got an order to collect N1.3 billion from the Federal Government.
The Permanent Secretary later told the committee that the judgment against the government was because it sold some of the company's equipment to recover the mobilisation fees paid the firm.
The committee had demanded that the Bills of Quantity of both contracts – that of N77 million and the inflated N2.3 billion – be brought before it for proper verification.
It said that the alleged inflated contract should be properly looked into via the Bills of Quantity so that the issue could be resolved, adding that the termination of the contract called for a lot of questions.
A member of the committee, Pally Iriase, noted that it was ridiculous to say there was a judgement debt of N1.3 billion awarded against the Federal Government concerning a project that was abandoned in the first place.
The committee also queried the Ministry over another N1.045 billion contract for Nsukka-Adani road in Enugu State.
Specifically, the lawmakers were interested in why the Ministry allegedly overpaid the contractor to the tune of N22 million two years after he abandoned the road project.
"How come the Federal Ministry of Works issued certificates for further payments to the contractor in 2005 and 2006 even though the contract was terminated in 2004?" it asked.
