Uproar over capital allocation at NPC

Acrisis is presently brewing among national commissioners at the National Population Commission (NPC) over alleged misapplication of N190 million expenditure, Daily Trust on Sunday gathered.

A source at the commission revealed to our reporter that the issue has led to disunity among top management staff of the commission and the board of federal commissioners chaired by Eze Duru Ihioma (SAN).

According to our source “the misappropriation of fund at the NPC has led to internal wrangling among commissioners. The matter degenerated when the Chairman of the Finance and General Purpose Committee (F&GPC), Dr. Chris O. Okeke resigned over the N190 million disbursements.”

Dr. Okeke is Commissioner representing Ebonyi State. In a letter dated June 28, 2016, copy of which was obtained by Daily Trust on Sunday, he refuted claims that the F&GPC under his chairmanship approved the disbursement of N190 million.

He said in the letter addressed to Chairman of the Commission and All Honourable Federal Commissioners (HFCs) that “It will be recalled that at the 154th Ordinary Meeting of the Commission held on Tuesday, 5th April, 2016, the Chairman called for executive session.

“At the meeting, the main issue was centered on disbursement of the N190 million purported to be the third (3rd) quarter Capital Allocation. The meeting was informed that F&GPC approved the disbursement of the said sum. As the then Chairman of F&GPC when the said approval was purported to have been made, I clearly stated that no such approval was granted by the F&GPC.”

Dr. Okeke said the matter led to personal attacks on his person by the Director General of the Commission, Dr. Ghaji Bello. He said “Apart from the use of insultive words on my person, the DG circulated a forged minutes which he claimed to be the minutes where the F&GPC granted approval.”

However, a top management staff of the commission who spoke to Daily Trust on Sunday off record debunked the allegations by Dr. Okeke. He said “the said N190 million was used for renovation of Data Processing Centres (DPCs) across the country. You know we are getting set for census. The commission followed due process in all our dealings and there is no how such amount could have been misapplied.”

He further stated that the NPC is currently ‘cash strapped’ because “we have not received a dime for capital expenditure in the last seven months. So the whole issue is false and baseless.”

But Dr. Okeke said the minutes from a meeting of the committee that held on 21st December, 2016 were forged by the management of the commission to insert the approval for disbursement of the N190 million capital allocations.

The Director Finance and Administration at the Commission was said to have briefed commissioners at the meeting that N180 million was spent on renovation of office buildings (DPCs) and N10 million for preparation of 2 Commission’s budgetary activities’.

Dr. Okeke however denied the claims that approval was obtained for the disbursement of the money saying “I had earlier resigned as the chairman of the F&GPC because despite persistent effort it became obvious to me that there is a deliberate action to side step extant financial regulations and keep the Commissioners in the dark and as such, I do not see myself fitting into such design.”

Further probes at the Commission revealed that the preparation for next year’s national census is also threatened by the financial irregularities at the Commission. Our source said Enumeration Area Demarcation (EAD) exercise has been neglected “it was done in such a way that money was spent on supervision that never took place.”

Our source also said “each member of the commission is supposed to be resident in his state, but they have all relocated to Abuja and are being paid N350,000 every month as oversight allowance. They shared N4.2 million each out of the N2 billion allocated last year as their oversight allowances.”

The source said the commission also awarded numerous contracts without due process, adding, “they gave out the contracts at over bloated rates leading to petitions from various contractors and a consortium of lawyers. The matter was referred to the Department of State Security (DSS), Abuja Command.”

Some of the contentious contracts were for renovation of Data Processing Centre (DPC) in Kaduna, Kano, Yola, Ibadan, Lagos, Enugu and Port Harcourt. Documents seen by Daily Trust on Sunday revealed that costs of some of the contracts were reviewed by the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP).

The documents indicated that the BPP faulted the process of award of contracts for renovation of the DPC at Enugu and Kaduna States. In the award of contract for renovation of the DPC at Enugu, BPP in a letter dated May 24, 2016, said the National Population Commission (NPC) ‘flagrantly’ abused several sections of the Public Procurement Act, 2007.

While flaying the NPC decision to award renovation of the Enugu DPC to Messrs Boranti Nigeria Limited at a cost of N42.5 million, BPP said the cost of contract was over quoted and therefore reviewed down to N39.2 million.

BPP in the document said “the Bureau again is concerned that NPC awarded the contract for Lot W8 (Enugu DPC) at the in-house estimate of N42,554,890.56 to Messrs Boranti Nigeria Limited, who is responsive and also the highest cost bidder with a bid price of N48,596,021.25 as against the lowest cost bidder; Messrs Iyke Jordan Group Limited with a bid price of N39,224,254.39 contrary to the provision of Section 16 (17) and Section 24(3) of the Public Procurement Act, 2007.”

Though the BPP approved the award of the contract to Boranti Nigeria Limited, it however said “the provision of Section 53(4) of the PPA, 2007, ratifies the award of the contract for the renovation of Data Processing Centre, Enugu Lot W8 to Messrs Boranti Nigeria Limited, at the fair lowest evaluated cost price of N39,224,254.39 as against earlier price awarded price of N42,554,890.56 in the interest of the public considering that the project is 70% completed.”

The BPP also found that contrary to provisions of the law, “tenders board in their meeting held on Friday 11th December, 2015 approved the renovation of DPC, Kaduna (Lot4) in favour of Messrs Muhsin Nigeria Limited at a total sum of N46,080,100.00 in violation of the provisions of Section 24(3) and 33(1) of the Public Procurement Act, 2007.”

The BPP frowned at such practice by the population commission saying “the Bureau adjudged the tender sum of N38,280,949.89 submitted by Messrs Prorata Investment Limited as the fairest and most reasonable in contrast to the high tender sum of N46,080,100.00 submitted by Messrs Muhsin Nigeria Limited. Messrs Prorata Investment is the lowest evaluated responsive bidder at tender sum of N38,280,949.89.

“Therefore the award of the contract to Messrs Muhsin Nigeria Limited (the third highest bidder) by the Commission can only be construed as a deliberate attempt to violate the provisions of Section (24(3) and 33(1) of the PPA, 2007.”

The Bureau directed that the contractor; Messrs Muhsin Nigeria Limited should make a refund of N7.7 million saying “in anticipation that the renovation works is of good quality, the retention fee of N2,304,005.00 to be later paid to the contractor must not be paid, rather the contractor must pay back the sum of N5,495,145.11 to the coffers of the NPC in order to offset the excess of N7,799,150.11 on the contract price...”

The BPP documents indicated flaws in the public procurement process at the NPC, adding that “the preliminaries and provisional sums in the bill were not fixed by the National Population Commission but rather each company tendered for the preliminaries and the provisional sums on their own, which resulted into having the wide difference between the competing firms which also influenced the cost of the project. Also a lot of items in the Bill of Quantity (BoQ) were found to be included as provisional when they can actually be quantified.”

Responding to the matter, an official at the Procurement Department of the NPC, who also craved anonymity, said the commission strictly abided by due process in all the process of procurements made. He said the BPP has not found any major financial recklessness on the side of the NPC saying “we have nothing to hide. We have appeared before the ICPC on this issue and I can tell you that all these allegations are false.”

He said in line with the directives of the BPP for some of the contractors to make refunds “we have written to the contractors, but they have informed us that they followed due process and will go to court to challenge the decision of the BPP.” The official said BPP had called for all the documents in award of the contracts and they reviewed the issue.”

BPP has warned the commission to desist from such practice in future saying “the Commission should avoid repeat of the identified breaches of the provisions of the PPA, 2007 in this procurement as future occurrence will be appropriately sanctioned in line with provisions of the Public Procurement Act, 2007.”

It advised the NPC to seek further training for its procurement officers “as well as all other officers involved in the public procurement activities to build institutional capacity.”

Further probes at the Commission revealed that the preparation for next year’s national census is also threatened by the financial irregularities at the Commission