The House of Representatives Committee on Public Procurement has extended its invitation to the Minister of works,Power and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Ahmad Ali (retd), and others over their involvement in deals bordering on violation of Procurement Act of 2007.
The lawmakers also invited the Director-General of Industrial Training Fund, ITF, Joseph Ari; Managing Director of Cobalt Nigeria Ltd, Mr Darlington Agha, and Managing Director, Trobell Int’l Nig Ltd, Sede Thomas. They are expected to appear before the committee in its sitting next week Tuesday.
An attempt to include former Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, was cancelled one of the law maker insisted that the current Minister of Finance has not in any way complained of any inadequacies. The lawmakers also expressed displeasure over the failure of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, towards payment of N25 billion into the Nigerian Export Supervision Scheme, NESS, accounts.
The committee Chairman Oluwole Oke, had during the second day of the investigative hearing on the “alleged abuse, breach and violation of the Public Procurement Act, 2007 in the engagement of Pre-shipment Inspection Agents, PIAs, frowned at the NNPC’s non-remittance of $20 million unspent fund to the Federation Account at the end of the 2016 financial year. The lawmakers also queried the failure of the appointed Pre-Inspection Agents, PIAs, to carry out inspection of all export terminals where all exports carried were out by NNPC at the inception of the scheme.
