How Code Of Conduct Tribunal Engaged In N516m Illegal Contracts – Audit Report

The Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation has filed complaints with the Code of Conduct Tribunal in Abuja over the alleged awarding of fraudulent contracts and projects totaling over N516 million without proper documentation.

According to a report by SaharaReporters, the OAUGF stated these in its 2019 report. The Chief Registrar was also expected to provide reasons why capital project payments were made without supporting documents, as well as provide the relevant documents for its projects purportedly carried out in Cross River, Kaduna, Bauchi, and Enugu states.

On September 15, 2021, the acting Auditor-General of the Federation, Adolphus Aghughu, delivered the report to the Clerk of the National Assembly, Ojo Amos.

The audit report is titled, “Auditor-General for the Federation’s Annual Report on Non-Compliance/Internal Control Weaknesses Issues in Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government of Nigeria for the Year Ended 31st December, 2019.”

It partly reads, “CODE OF CONDUCT TRIBUNAL – At the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), the following observations were made; i. The Tribunal has fifteen (15) Motor Vehicles which were acquired between 2008 and 2018 for amounts totalling N1,029,269.22. None of the above vehicles was insured as required by extant regulations.

The above anomalies could be attributed to weaknesses in the internal control system at the CCT.

“ISSUE 2: PAYMENTS FOR CAPITAL PROJECTS WITHOUT SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS (=N434,500,000.00) Audit observed that: i. The sum of 434,500,000.00 (Four hundred and thirty four million, five hundred thousand naira) was paid to contractors for projects in Calabar, Kaduna, Bauchi and Enugu.

“ii. There was no documentary evidence on the progress of work like Bill of Engineering Measurement and Evaluation (BEME), Consultants Interim Payment Certificate (IPC) and payment vouchers in respect of the payments, and iii. The level of work done for which payments were made could not be ascertained due to refusal of the Tribunal to lead the auditors on inspection of project sites. The above anomalies could be attributed to weaknesses in the internal control system at the CCT.

“Recommendations; The Chief Registrar is requested to: i. Furnish reasons why payments for capital projects were made without supporting documents as required by extant regulations.

ii. Provide the Original Payment Vouchers with relevant documents like Letter of Award of Contracts, Bill of Engineering Measurement and Evaluation (BEME), Consultants Interim Payment Certificate (IPC) in respect of work done in Calabar, Kaduna, Bauchi and Enugu;

iii. Recover the sum of N434,500,000.00 (Four hundred and thirty four million, five hundred thousand naira) from the contractors and remit same to the Treasury.

“ISSUE 3: IRREGULAR AWARD OF CONTRACT (=N82,004,471.20, vide payment voucher Number CCT/HQ/G/VI/1006 dated 15 /11/2019. ii. The terms of the contract showed that this contract was an additional one from an existing contract. iii. There was no open competitive bidding in the award of the contract to the contractor. There was no Federal Executive Council approval despite the fact that the contract sum was above the approval threshold of the Tribunal, and vi. Payment voucher of the existing contract was not made available for examination. The above anomalies could be attributed to weaknesses in the internal control system at the CCT.

“The Management’s Response was that the details of the initial contract could not be supplied as at the time of audit exercise because the vouchers in question were in transit to the audit monitoring department of OAGF who prior to that time sent her audit team to carry out routine audit checks of the Tribunal’s Books and records.”