Constituency Project: ICPC Begins Investigation Into Fraudulent Procurement Practices In Delta, Ogun, Kaduna, 13 Others

By Matthew Ogune, Abuja

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) said it is set to begin probe into fraudulent procurement practices in the award of contracts for constituency and executive projects across 16 states of the federation.

ICPC Spokesperson, Rasheedat Okoduwa who disclosed this yesterday in Abuja listed states to be covered during the exercise to include, Delta, Cross River, Taraba, Ekiti, Ogun, Gombe, Nasarawa, Kebbi, Kwara, Jigawa, Abia, Ebonyi, Niger, Rivers, Oyo, and Kaduna states respectively.

According to Okoduwa, the exercise, which is scheduled to commence tomorrow, Tuesday 23rd June, 2020 in the 16 states, will focus on health, education, water esources, agriculture, and power.

Some of the objectives of the tracking exercise according to the Spokesperson, are to investigate fraudulent procurement practices in the award of contracts for constituency and executive projects, make recoveries on projects or contracts confirmed to have been inflated or in which contractors under-performed or did not perform at all.

Another is to track contracting companies for all statutory compliance.

She said the commission is undertaken the project due to the success it recorded in the first phase of the constituency and executive projects tracking exercise conducted in 12 states of the federation in 2019.

Okoduwa added: “The Commission in 2019 launched the pilot phase of the exercise in which it tracked projects performance from 2015 to 2019 in 12 states.

“Successes of the exercise included the recoveries of tractors, ambulances, dialysis machines and other hospital equipment from sponsors of the projects across the pilot states.

“The successes also included the recovery of huge sums of money, hundreds of tricycles, grinding machines and other empowerment items from the project sponsors.

“Furthermore, the exercise forced contractors who hitherto had abandoned projects to return to site to complete them.

“ICPC is again set to take the exercise to states not covered in the pilot phase with the aim of ensuring that government gets value in the execution of public projects, and improved delivery of social welfare services to the citizens. Just as the first phase, the project tracking will be done in collaboration with the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS), Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Media, Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) and other stakeholders.”