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By Innocent Orok
The interim Audit reports by the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation submitted to the Ad-hoc Committee probing the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) projects from the year 2000-2019 has revealed that a total of 626 Contractors collected various mobilization sums amounting to N61,468,160,743.03 and bolted away with it without moving to contract sites.
In the a total of 1,723 contractors who collected N70.496 billion from the NDDC between 2000–2019 failed to mobilize to sites. The report further revealed that 90% of these contracts were awarded between 2011–2012.”
According to the report the Accountant General of the Federation also recommended that: “the unearned payment of N458,821,440 over and above the value of work done before the contract was completely abandoned/terminated should be recovered from the contractors which the banks that guarantee the unreceived element of the mobilization in respect of the contract should be held responsible and the contractor blacklisted.”
Details of the the various the N61.468 billion abandoned contracts located in the Nine oil-producing states shows that:
Projects worth N2.027 billion mobilization fee was paid for 32 projects in Abia State out of N17.641 billion contract.
In Akwa Ibom state, the sum of N4.229 billion was paid as mobilisation fee out of N31.681 billion contract for 64 projects.
In Bayelsa state, the sum of N4.970 billion was paid as mobilisation fee out of N27.647 billion contracts for 80 projects.
In the same vein, in Cross River state, the sum of N2.065 billion mobilisation fee was paid out of N13.451 billion for 29 projects.
The NDDC management also paid the sum of N7.836 billion as mobilisation fee out of N31.765 billion for 99 projects in Delta State.
In Edo state, N2.065 billion was paid as mobilisation fee out of N13.927 billion for 51 projects.
The Commission also paid the sum of N1.859 billion as mobilisation fee out N13.184 billion for 33 projects in Imo State.
The sum of N6.173 billion was paid as mobilisation fee out of N29.977 billion for 50 projects in Ondo State.
Within the period under review, the Commission paid N13.146 billion as mobilisation fee out of N56.717 billion for 106 projects in Rivers State.
In its findings, the office of the
Accountant General of the Federation “observed that so many contractors were paid the mobilization fees to enable them to commence the execution of the projects awarded to them.“Contrary to the contract terms and the agreements, some of the contractors bolted away after the collection of the mobilization fees.
“The surprising aspect of it was that this practice involved 626 contractors in which the sum of N61,468,160,743.03 was lost to this fraudulent practices,” the report read in part.
