ICPC discovers projects in Imo without contract agreement
by Temisan Amoye
By Chinonso Alozie, Owerri
A team of the federal constituency Project tracking in Imo state, led by the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC, yesterday said that it discovered that most of the projects in the federal constituencies visited were awarded without contract agreement.
This was part of the discussion at this year’s United Nations International Anti -Corruption day held in Owerri.
Vanguard was at the event, among which the stakeholders who spoke was the state Commissioner of ICPC, Udensi Arua, said that federal constituency projects are funded by the Federal government but was shocked that some of them were not adequately delivered.
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Just as one of the ICPC, project tracking team members Mr Ray Agumuo of the Nigeria Institute of Quality Surveyors, said that part of their discovery was that contract awarded were without contract agreement and that the contracts have only contract paper.
Arua briefly said: “Federal Constituency projects are funded by the Federal government and most of them we discovered a lot of things. Some of the lawmakers did nothing. We saw that some of them almost converted the projects as their property.”
According to Agumuo of the Nigeria Institute of Quality Surveyors, said: “At some point when the ICPC, started the constituency projects tracking we were involved. A list of projects was given to us to track. Our experience going by what we saw on ground was worrisome.
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“What we discovered was the problem of the areas we visited started from the awarding of contracts. We noticed that for instance if the cost of the project is N100 million what you will see in the contract paper as a cost that was awarded will be N30 million.
“Honestly, it surprises us. We see it as an avenue for corruption. In most cases, what the consultant claim is the cost of the contract is different from that of the money of the contractors.
“One thing is clear, where we visited the projects were on grounds. We saw the projects and some of them were abandoned. The problem was that each of the projects we tracked there was contract paper but there was no contract agreement.”