Nigeria Content Online

The House of
Representatives has ordered the immediate stoppage of another federal
aviation contract over allegations of over-bidding and breach of
procurement regulations.

The House Public
Procurement committee yesterday directed the Ministry of Aviation to
suspend a €17 million (N3.0 Billion) contract for the installation of
Aeronautical Information System (AIS) in airports, after lawmakers
questioned officials over the poor handling of the transaction. “I wish
to state here that the Minister of Aviation and the Director General of
the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) should suspend all
actions on the contract until they appear before us to clarify the
issues being raised by the contractor,” announced Yusuf Tuggar, the
house committee chairman on Monday.

Members accused the
officials of the aviation ministry, Nigerian Airspace Management
Agency, and the Bureau of Public Procurement, of flouting basic rules
and granting the contract to a company that tendered at the highest
cost for the execution of the project.

Inflated

The Minister of
Aviation, Fidelia Njeze, is expected to explain the ministry’s decision
in awarding the deal to a company that bid almost twice what was quoted
by another company.

Basic federal
public procurement rules state that contracts be awarded to companies
with lower quotations, except in special cases and even then clearance
for the award is supposed to be obtained.

In the AIS contract, Mocom/Skynet won the bid despite bidding €17.9 million, against the €9.5 million, bid by Avsatel GMBH.

The job is to set
up an AIS detection system-surveillance equipment in all airports
across the country. Further details and terms of the contract were not
made available, but the House committee chairman, said the contract
will be suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.

Contract flaws

This is the third
time in four months that a committee in the House of Representatives
has reported major flaws in a contract awarded for a major project in
the country.

A contract for the
construction of a new runway for the Abuja airport, was earlier
suspended by the House over allegations of over-costing. Lawmakers also
ordered inquiry into the costing of the expansion project of the Abuja
airport expressways.

In all three cases,
the lawmakers faulted the Bureau of Public Procurement for failing to
detect the over rated amounts, and approving the contract for execution.

For the AIS contract, the bureau spokesperson, NNebolisa Odizie,
said the decision was taken because of an “inadequate” technical and
financial evaluation submitted by Avsatel. He said the bureau abided
“strictly” by the advice of expert consultants in awarding the contract.