The National Examination Council has been accused of illegally awarding N6.5 billion contracts for the printing of security materials.
The indication emerged at the public hearing organised for the stakeholders on the bill by Senate Public Accounts Committee (SPAC) chaired by Senator Mathew Uhroghide.
The Senate therefore, upheld the recommendation of the Committee after the NECO failed to defend the allegations.
While defending the allegations, the NECO stated that the contract was awarded through selective tendering which was done to avoid leakage of examination questions.
But, the committee observed that the council did not follow due process in the award of the contract.
The Committee, therefore, recommended that the Tender Board that awarded the contract should be held liable in line with Financial Regulation 3117(1) &11, which states, “Where the award is by a tender board, all members of the board shall be sanctioned individually or collectively.”
The query reads, “Examination of records and documents revealed that the Commission’s Tenders Board approved the award of contract for the printing of security materials in the sum of N451 million to a company in March 2017 in contravention of provisions of Federal Government Circular No.SGF/OP/I/S.3/XI/849 of 16th January 2016 which reiterated the approved revised thresholds for service-wide application, for which the Parastatal Tender Board can only exercise authority on works whose value is less than N250 million while any sum above this, is to be referred to the Ministerial Tenders Board for approval.”
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