As the war of words between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the National Assembly subsides, shocking revelations have emerged on how members of the National Assembly, allegedly hijacked federal contracts and had been holding the executive hostage in the budgetary process.

Investigations in the last two weeks showed that most contracts in federal ministries were executed by cronies of lawmakers or their agents so nominated with the ministers and top civil servants under alleged compulsion to play along or risk being subjected to probe and public hearing by the National Assembly.

Our correspondent, who checked through various ministries and agencies discovered that the lawmakers appeared to have perfected their art so well that in the last 10 years, the practice had become almost accepted by the public service with some leading civil servants said to be colluding with the lawmakers.

Contrary to public perceptions about their jumbo pay and allowances, many lawmakers had become multibillionaires from their alleged access to mega million contracts and supplies across the ministries and agencies where their slots are assigned and handled by their trusted aides and agents.

While the top hierarchy of the two chambers were said to be insulated from the practice, investigations showed that chairmen of committees and their members allegedly enforced the protection of access to juicy contracts through their oversight activities which was discovered to be a cover to allegedly pile pressure on ministers and ministries that were falling out of lines.

Many top civil servants, who talked on the condition of anonymity, explained how the scheme worked in detail even as they admitted that it had become a deal between many in the executive and the legislative arms, noting that “lawmakers regard access to a percentage of ministry‘s contract as a right.

“The deal commences long before the budget is passed into law. In some cases, the lawmakers sponsored inclusion of projects when the ministries are preparing their budgets. The location is, at times, included with the cost running into millions of naira,” a reliable source alleged.

According to him, once the budget proposals are defended and adopted by the Budget Office, the lawmakers take over the push for approval through the legislative process especially as the statutory committees of the National Assembly are sub committees of the Appropriation committees of the two chambers of the National Assembly.

The sub-committees, it was gathered, protected their turf during the budget processing, while also holding countless closed-door meetings with civil servants and ministers with the subject said to be the striking of understanding as to how the ministries budget would be handled after the final passage of the budget.

Further investigations revealed that where the lawmakers did not propose any project in the budget of the ministries, their slots in the contract allocations are secured and protected through the tender process.

The sources across the ministries also gave details on how the lawmakers allegedly submitted company names which are forwarded to the head of the ministries with a view to ensuring their pre-qualifications and eventual award of contracts, despite the widely publicised public procurement processes.

“Their company names are shortlisted, prequalified and eventually asked to submit bids. Their bids win no matter what others quoted. So they get the jobs, especially as the political head is always scared of failing to meet the lawmakers’ demands,” a well placed source said.

A check at a ‘juicy’ federal agency showed the extent of the hold of the lawmakers on contracts with the head of procurement saying that those nationwide projects across the country were meant for the members of the National Assembly.

“Those projects are earmarked for the lawmakers. That has been the practice because they are closer to the local governments, where the projects are to be cited,“the source allegedly.

In another agency, three lawmakers were actually around to follow up their jobs, while the head of the agency was said to be fully ready to offer all needed support for the lawmakers.

A top federal civil servant recently told the chief executives of the companies that they should link up with lawmakers if they were serious about getting the job they bidded for, asserting that the procurement process could not guarantee their securing the said contracts.

It was learnt that some first rated ministries and agencies had even devised a standard sharing formula which allocate the contracts of the ministry or department to various interest groups with the lawmakers‘ share prominently marked as compulsory.


http://tribune.com.ng/sat/index.php/front-page-articles/7481-how-lawmakers-hijacked-federal-contracts.html


Can you believe this? Who else is not corrupt? who will fight for the masses? many questions on my mind