Political Briefs
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THE presidential committee set up to probe contracts awarded by the Office of the National Security Adviser, ONSA, from 2011 to 2015 has indicted more than 300 companies and prominent citizens including serving and retired officers of the armed forces.
A statement by the Presidency said that more than N7 billion had been recovered so far from the indicted individuals and companies, and that another N41 Billion would be refunded by the indicted companies. The committee similarly said that further investigation would be done by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, to determine whether another N75 billion should be recovered from some of the companies for unexecuted or partially executed contracts.
The statement by Garba Shehu, senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity, said the committee further established that Societe D’Equipment International, one of the indicted companies, was overpaid to the tune of 7.9 Million Euros and $7.09 Million.
The statement said in part: “The committee which is different from the committee that is investigating the Defence Arms and Equipment Procurement, discovered that there was a total disregard of salient provisions of the Public Procurement Act in the award of contracts by the ONSA.
“Several contractors were apparently over paid, while others were given full upfront payments contrary to their contract terms and agreements in force.
“There was also evidence of payments to individuals and companies by the ONSA without any contractual agreement or evidence of jobs executed. The committee further discovered that some companies failed to meet up their tax obligations for contracts executed.”
The committee said it had made attempts and succeeded in recovering some of the funds from these individuals and organisations amounting to N3,537,549,223.04; $8,000,000.00 and seized houses worth N512,000,000.00 from 32 companies.
Besides, the Committee also established that some individuals and companies received monies without evidence of contractual agreements or jobs done. The amount received by these individuals was put at N7,104,925,000.00.
Similarly, the committee disclosed that some companies that failed to execute contracts or did so partially were to make refunds. The total amount to be refunded was put at N19,896,539,125.20 and $43,771,433.73 and two houses in Abuja worth N260,000,000.
The committee also revealed that 15 companies were awarded contracts that required further investigation to ascertain the status of their contracts. The total value of the contracts awarded in this category was N11,726,571,161; $202,136,890.00 and €4,114,752.96.
— Apr 4, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT
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