The minister at least once ordered the cancellation of an invitation for bids for a contract in favour of the incumbent contractor.
“Come up with suggestions and advice that would strengthen the operations of NPA and forestall such occurrences in future.Addressing those criticising the probe, the minister said: “This is in the discharge of our responsibility as a ministry and I don’t see why anybody is complaining.
Ms Usman said in her memo that Mr Amaechi had complained about his ministry not being “carried along” in the process and had raised concerns about budgetary provisions for the contracts. On COVID-19 concern raised by Mr Amaechi, Ms Usman said that would not affect the tender process because provisions had been made for courier submission and all were being done in line with the procurement law.
The NPA complied with the minister’s directive and cancelled the procurement process. But the BPP, whose memo Mr Amaechi had referenced as the basis for his directive, strongly criticised the ministry and the NPA.In a letter dated June 18, 2020, the BPP argued that contrary to reservations raised about COVID-19, there were some activities of government that should not be delayed.
“Considering that these contracts have subsisted since 2005 i.e for about fifteen years, it may not be in the best interest of Government to keep them any longer than necessary. As a matter of fact, the Bureau is concerned that the government is presently left at the mercy of the subsisting contractors without valid contracts.”
The ministry then indicated an interest in playing a role in the evaluation of the bids submitted by contractors, in what is clearly an unusual situation. The NPA agreed, although the process should have been for the ministry to await submissions by the NPA since it has to grant approval before the bids are forwarded to the BPE and the Federal Executive Council.
She pleaded with the president to okay the continuation of the procurement process and approve NPA’s decision not to procure equipment for channel management as it does not have the skill set required to operate and maintain them.Aside from the disagreements over dredging contracts, documents seen by this newspaper also showed that both parties clashed over the contractual relationship between the NPA and Intels, a logistics firm.
The president, through the Chief of Staff, thereafter requested the NPA to provide details of its contractual obligations with the logistic giant. However, the NPA said nothing was heard from the ministry about the tender process yet the nation continued to lose revenue due to the failure to complete the tender process.
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