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LequteMan
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According to Sahara Reporters, Nigeria’s Minister of Aviation, Stella Adaeze Oduah, has been accused of allocating funds for multiple sham contracts ostensibly for the rehabilitation and upgrade of eleven airports across the country by the National Union of Air Transport, NUAT.
A petition by members of the NUAT accuses Mrs. Oduah of touting the rehab projects as “quick-win” strategies to burnish President Goodluck Jonathan’s “transformation agenda.” In a letter to the leadership of the Nigerian Senate in July, the petitioners detailed a series of scams at various levels in the allocation process of the contracts.
The minister has drawn praise from the Nigerian media for the ongoing airport remodeling projects. But the petitioners portray the exercise as an elaborate scam and daylight robbery of public funds. In the words of the petition, the projects are “calculated to dupe [the] unsuspecting Nigerian public.”
The petition discloses that the two-phase projects have become a four-level scam.
The first part was the ministry’s allocation of funds for “consultancy” service, which called for select firms to draw up designs and plans for the upgrade and rehabilitation of the airports. The second part was the allocation of the actual contracts to predetermined companies through a rigged tenders’ process that ignored advertising the jobs to attract qualified companies. The third and fourth segments of the alleged scam involved the repetition of the first two steps under a spurious tag called “Phase II.
“Messrs Ngonyama Okpanum and Associates; Messrs Design Union Consulting Ltd and Messrs Triad Associates Ltd were awarded contracts for consultancy works on the upgrade of the airports at the sums of N99, 179,507.17; N60, 986,730.46 and N95, 520,011.93 respectively without advertisement, certificate of No Objection from the BPP or approval by the tender’s board,” the union stated.
An executive of the tender’s board said that the union’s petition “has merit.” According to him, “They said it was for urgency that they elected the selective tender method and stipulated six months, but it is over two years now and you can see their basis for selective tender is defeated. This is all fraud.”
“For example, Zakhem Construction Nig. Ltd was awarded the contract for upgrade of MMIA Lagos in the 1st phase at the sum of N920, 191, 147.58. Curiously, [the] same company was awarded another contract in the tune of N981, 900,300.45 for ‘upgrade and rehabilitation’ of MMIA Lagos, under a spurious banner of Phase II.” According to the petition, “the entire Phase II is sheer duplication of Phase I.”
In interviews with SaharaReporters, two leaders of the union said they were disappointed that the leadership of the Senate had taken no action since receiving their petition.
