A House of Representative committee has revealed in an interim report that the N3.6 trillion ($12 billion) standard coastal railway line contract awarded before the 2015 elections did not follow regulations guiding contract award.
The contract awarded by the government of the former President, Goodluck Jonathan to the Chinese construction giant, CCECC is alleged not to have gone through the appropriate channels.
The rail line is to run from Calabar, through the Ex-president’s native village of Otuoke in Bayelsa State to Lagos.
However, the interim report of the House Ad-hoc committee, which is investigating railway contracts from 2010 to 2014, has discovered series of breaches of the Public Procurement Act and other laws.
The committee, which is headed by Rep Johnson Ehiozuwa (PDP, Edo), was set up to look into the activities of the Federal Ministry of Transport, the SURE-P programme and the management of Nigerian Railways Corporation from 2010 to 2014.
A kin look at the 20-page report, Daily Trust gathered, revealed that almost 40 railway contracts reviewed were breached in one way or the other.
The abnormalities include, multi-billion contracts awarded without competitive bidding; contractors without verifiable cognate railway experience or using the names of international companies to secure contracts but executed without their involvement.
The report is also showed with proofs, contracts awarded without proper documentation and at inflated costs, as well as contract manipulation without the involvement of the Board of the Nigerian Railway Corporation.
In the case of the N3.6 trillion costal rails the report revealed that there was no competitive bidding even as the cost was inflated.
The report also, revealed that there was no cogent feasibility study or independent technical assessment or advice and no front end engineering design (FEED) or even preliminary design.
The Contract is said to not have received the mandatory approval of the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) for major contracts, which the bureau had refused to accord it due to the inflated cost and lack of funding plan.
It is reported also that Contracts bypassed the compulsory approval of the Federal Executive Council.
The Report has it that the Jonathan government allegedly went ahead and signed the contract even without the approval of both the bureau and the FEC.
“FMT (Federal Ministry of Transport) entered into a commercial contract with CCEEE/CRCC on November 19, 2014. The award did not obtain a ‘no objection’ certificate from the BPP due to the absence of a verifiable funding plan”, the report stated.
It added: “It was not presented to FEC (Federal Executive Council) and there was no constitutional approval for this contract; indeed the contract was signed a week after the BPP refused a ‘no objection’ certificate and insisted it was overpriced.”
This, according to the report, is contrary to the preamble in the contract document which claims that all due process steps were complied with and that the BPP issued a no objection certification no: BPP/DG2014/2162 dated November 12, 2014

http://dailypost.ng/2016/02/29/how-n3-6tr-rail-contract-bypassed-fec-bpps-approval/
lalasticlala.

catchfun:

http://dailypost.ng/2016/02/29/how-n3-6tr-rail-contract-bypassed-fec-bpps-approval/
lalasticlala.

This jonathan sha!

Its either he is heartless or he is really Clueless.

Interesting