By Rotimi Akinwumi / Abuja
Any person found guilty in the alleged illegal purchase of two bulletproof BMW cars at the cost of N255 million by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) risks a jail term of five years without option of fine.
Chairman House of Representatives Committee on Public Procurement, Jumoke Okoya-Thomas, who spoke on the position of the law on the issue on Monday, said the punishment was clearly stated in the Public Procurement Act.
She insisted that no agency of government can claim ignorance of the law.
"Section 58 (5) of the Public Procurement Act states that 'Any person, who, while carrying out his duties as an officer of the Bureau or any procuring entity who contravenes any provision of this Act, commits an offence and is liable to a conviction of cumulative punishment of (a) a term of imprisonment of not less than five calendar years without any option of fines and (b) summary dismissal from government services'."
Speaking to newsmen at the National Assembly, the lawmaker said without attempting to preempt the on-going investigative hearing on the procurement, the Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah, still has a case to answer with the House Committee on Public Procurement.
She also blamed the government for not empowering the Bureau of Public Procurement enough in the execution of its duties.
Speaking on the dictates of the law as regards the contentious issue, Okoya-Thomas said: "I did not put this law there, but the will to implement it is key to sanity in this country."
She insisted that the defence put up so far by the NCAA on how funds were sourced for the purchase of the vehicles are unjustifiable.
"Argument of lease purchase does not hold as long as they are going to pay with public funds and to say that NCAA is within the threshold makes it look like splitting the budget, which is another case on its own under the procurement law."
According to the lawmaker, Oduah has issues bordering on procurement with her committee and which she (Oduah) has ignored more than 12 times.
"Our committee has the responsibility to oversight BPP and since the core objective of public procurement is to ascertain value for money, we have been having issues with the Ministry of Aviation and agencies under it for sometime now.
"It might interest you to know that we have issued out not less than 12 invitations to the Minister of Aviation but she has not deemed it fit to respond even for once. She has always been giving us one excuse or the other.
"If she has been honouring our invitations, by now a lot of things would have been known to her and she would not be finding herself in this situation.
"When we invite these ministers, my advice is that they should not see it as a personal thing but a way of forging a working relationship.
"There is no doubt that she has a case to answer with the BPP Committee," Okoya-Thomas said.
She blamed the Presidency for deliberately weakening the BPP as well as refusing to comply with the procurement law on the issue of the bureau's board.
"The issue of the constitution of the board of BPP is embarrassing, as it has not been constituted till date.
"Sometimes we need the cooperation of the Executive. When we go out there, we want people to adhere to the provisions of the law.
"The impropriety that we are witnessing in this country is embarrassing to the nation. And if you don't take care of a particular aspect of the law but go ahead and implement another aspect, it means you do not wish the law to succeed or be effective.
"The law must be implemented holistically for sanity to prevail in a nation. We have pushed for the implementation of that particular clause along the other parts they are implementing but they are not willing to apply that particular clause.
"We are pushing for the implementation of the Council of Board as contained in the Act but if they are not doing it, then they have their reasons, not that we are not doing anything about it.
"The job of the Board is to formulate policies for the agency and the DG is the Secretary of the Board but the idea is that more people will be able to contribute better than just one or two people especially when we are talking about trillions of naira of appropriated funds," she added.
