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| Director-General, BPP, Mr. Emeka Ezeh |
The controversy surrounding the approval
of N929.6m legal contract towards the end of the administration of
President Goodluck Jonathan for the liquidation of the Power Holding
Company of Nigeria deepened on Wednesday with the Bureau of Public
Procurement denying issuing a no objection for the award of the
contract.
The Head, Public Communications, BPE,
Mr. Alex Okoh, had on Tuesday said the bureau had obtained approval from
the BPP for contracts of N929.6m and N500m to Messrs J. K. Gadzama
& Co and the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation for
consultancy relating to the winding down of the PHCN.
But in a statement issued by the Head of
Media, BPP, Mr. Thomas Odemwingie, the agency denied the issuance of
‘No Objection’ to the BPE for the award of the consultancy contract and
another N500m for the Office of Accountant General of the Federation.
Odemwingie said, “As of December 2014,
the BPP, vide letter Ref. No. BPP/S.1/EID/14/Vol.I/046, refused to grant
a ‘No Objection’ certificate for the engagement of a legal firm for
this purpose.
“On the advice of the Attorney General
of the Federation, the BPP had earlier on September 22, 2014, rejected
the request for the issuance of the certificate of ‘No Objection’ to the
contract award.
“The BPP certificate Ref.
BPP/S13/VOLVIII/190 dated 2nd of September 2013 referred to by the BPE
in favour of the legal firm was withdrawn and cancelled.
“Even when the AGF replied that we may
consider revisiting our position and re-issue/revalidate our
certificate, the BPP by the letter referred to in paragraph two above
declined the request and approved only the engagement of Messrs. Ora
Egbunike & Associates for the asset valuation services in the sum of
N517,694,100.”
He added, “This approval for the
engagement of Messrs Ora Egbunike & Associates was subsequently
approved by the Federal Executive Council. There was no approval, to our
knowledge, by either the President or Federal Executive Council for the
engagement of the legal services.
“It may interest the general public to
note that section 16(4) of the Public Procurement Act provides that any
contract purported to be awarded without a certificate of ‘No Objection’
to contract award duly issued by the bureau shall be null and void.”
Odemwingie added that there was no basis for the award of the contract to the legal firm as claimed by the BPE.
Source: Punchng
