Sunday Aborisade and Friday Olokor
The report of the Auditor General of the Federation, currently being considered by the Senate Public Account Committee, has indicted the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board for awarding N7.3bn without recourse to due process.
The AuGoF, Anthony Ayine, submitted the report to the leadership of the Senate, which later forwarded it to the Chairman of SPAC, Senator Mathew Urhoghide.
The report, sighted by our correspondent in Abuja, indicated that the contracts were awarded by JAMB between 2012 and 2013.
It indicted then JAMB Registrar for approving contracts worth N7.1bn without due process and deliberately splitting contracts worth N247m in breach of an extant circular issued in March 2009.
Part of the report read, “Audit examination of procurement documents and other records of JAMB revealed that 21 payment vouchers for amount totaling N7.1bn were in respect of contracts approved by JAMB registrar outside his authorised approval threshold of N2.5m for supplies and N5m for works.
“This is contrary to the Bureau of Public Procurement-approved revised threshold for service-wide application as conveyed in circular No. SGF/OP/1/S.3/VIII/57 of 11 March 2009.
“The registrar/chief executive was requested to explain why he acted outside his authorised approval threshold and also to furnish evidence of ratification by the JAMB Tender Board, Ministerial Tenders Board or the Federal Executive Council.
“In response with reference number JAMB/FIN/127Vop.2/171 dated May 2016, the registrar stated that the awards were based on agreement entered into for a pre-determined period preceding the time of the audit and certain job cannot be subjected to general contracting.
“This response did not address the query.
“It was observed that several contracts were split in 2012 and 2013 accounting year in order to circumvent approval limits of the various authorities.
“These contracts were approved by the registrar who had no authority to do so.”
When contacted, the Spokesperson for JAMB, Dr Fabian Benjamin, said, “No comment.”
Copyright PUNCH.
Comments are closed.