300 persons, coys indicted in N123bn contracts awarded by NSA’s office

Colonel Mohammed Sambo Dasuki RTD

A committee set up to probe contracts awarded by the Office of the National Security Adviser from 2011 to 2015 has indicted more than 300 companies and prominent citizens, including serving and retired officers of the armed forces.
Over N7 billion has been recovered so far from the indicted companies and individuals.
Another N41 billion is to be refunded by the indicted companies, while further investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has been ordered to determine whether another N75 billion should be recovered from some of the companies for unexecuted or partially executed contracts.

The committee further established that one of the indicted companies, Societe D’Equipment International, was overpaid to the tune of 7.9 million Euros and $7.09 million.
The committee, which is different from the committee that is investigating the Defence Arms and Equipment Procurement, discovered that there was a total disregard of salient provisions of the Public Procurement Act in the award of contracts by ONSA.

Several contractors were apparently overpaid, while others were given full upfront payments contrary to their contract terms and agreements in force.
There was also evidence of payments to individuals and companies by ONSA without any contractual agreement or evidence of jobs executed.
The committee further discovered that some companies failed to meet up their tax obligations for contracts executed.
The Committee has made attempts and succeeded in recovering some of the funds from these individuals and organizations amounting to N3,537,549,223.04 billion; $8 million; and houses worth N512 million from 32 companies.

The Committee also established that some individuals and companies received monies without evidence of contractual agreements or jobs done.
The amount received by these individuals was N7.104,925 billion.

In a similar vein, the Committee revealed that some companies that failed to execute contracts or did so partially were to make refunds.
The total amount to be refunded is N19,896,539,125.20 billion; $43,771,433.73 million; and two houses in Abuja worth N260 million.
The Committee also revealed that 15 companies were awarded contracts that require further investigation to ascertain the status of their contracts.

The total value of the contracts awarded in this category was N11,726,571,161.00 billion; $202,136,890 million; and €4,114,752.96 million.
The Companies investigated by the committee included: