The Federal Ministry of Works has been ordered to repay into the nation’s account the sum of 692 million naira allegedly spent on fictitious contracts, as contained in the 2018 report of the Auditor-General for the Federation.
Nigerian Senate gave the directive after the consideration of the report by its Committee on Public Accounts, which discovered that a contract of 343 million naira was awarded for the purchase of project monitoring vehicles without due process and without vehicles being supplied.
The report added that another contract was awarded for services and the procurement of vehicle spare parts, computer accessories, photo-copying machine parts and for designing of the country’s roads and bridges at N139 million naira.
It was also alleged in the report that 210 million naira meant for a documentary was split into 130 million and 80 million naira and paid into a staff account, which contravenes financial regulation.
The Red Chamber’s panel, chaired by Mathew Urhoghide said it had sent a series of invitations to the Ministry of Works to defend the allegations raised by the Auditor-General for the Federation without response from affected officials which according to him, caused sustenance of the queries.
