Allegations bordering on over-inflation of contracts, violation of procurement laws, and nepotism have been raised by the House of Representatives against the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing superintended by former Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola.
The House has accordingly mandated its Committees on Power; and Public Procurement to investigate the allegations which concern an award of N42b rural electrification contracts in some universities across the country.
The House also urged the Ministry to cease forthwith further procurement processes on the projects, pending the outcome of investigation.
The resolutions followed a motion moved by Darlington Nwokocha (PDP, Abia) on Tuesday.
While presenting the motion, Nwokocha noted that the ‘Rural Electrification Access Programme in Federal Universities’ is a pilot scheme designed by the Ministry to electrify eight Federal Universities in the first instance and later replicate same across the remaining Universities.
The lawmaker disclosed that the sum of ₦9.5billion was appropriated for the projects in the 2017 Appropriation Act but that the jobs were awarded at the total cost of ₦42billion in violation of the Public Procurement Act.
Darlington disclosed further that the projects, which were supposed to be spread across the six geo-political zones of the country were not evenly distributed, but mainly concentrated in some zones to the disadvantage of the others, which is against the principle of federal character enshrined in Section 14 (3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999.
He also expressed concerns that the contracts were selectively awarded to two companies that “do not have any records of achievements in the fields which is tantamount to further violation of the Public Procurement Act.”
The motion was adopted with a report of the investigation expected to be laid in three weeks for further legislative action.