A review of the Ekiti state Open Contracting portal has revealed that the Ekiti state government awarded contracts worth over N8.6 billion without disclosing the contractors for these projects.
The contracts, awarded between 2017 and 2022, number up to over four hundred. The review shows that these contracts have ‘Executive Secretaries and Permanent Secretaries’ as the contractors.
Contracts listed against ‘permanent secretaries’ number up to a hundred and totalled over N6.029 billion while those listed in favour of ‘executive secretaries’ stood at N2.571billion from about three hundred projects.
In one instance, details on the open contracting portal of the state show that a purchase of textbooks worth N72 million by the state was awarded to ‘permanent secretary’ while the class of the organisation that won the contract was listed as “Government organisation”. The contract also did not stipulate the number of textbooks to be purchased for the amount.
In another instance, the renovation exercise for seven general hospitals in the state to the tune of N350 million awarded in 2021 did not have the contractors that carried out the renovations listed, instead the contractor name was listed as ‘permanent secretary’ while the class of the organisation in each case was stated as ‘government organisation”.
Other cases found on the state’s portal included; construction of classrooms, renovation of staff quarters for schools, rehabilitation of buildings, among other projects.
Surprisingly, the “permanent secretaries” to whom these contracts were awarded seem to be unaware of these contracts. For instance, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology in the state, Dr Folakemi Olomojobi, told Dataphyte that it was impossible for contracts to be awarded to a permanent secretary, according to her, a corporate organisation is usually awarded contracts.
“I am not aware of the existence of such a contract awarded to the permanent secretary, I have been the permanent secretary since February, 2021 and at no time was such contract awarded to my office. When contracts are awarded, it is usually to a company and as such it is impossible that the permanent secretary would win such contracts.” she noted.
When told that the information was published on the state Public Procurement portal, she denied the authenticity of such information.
“I am not aware, it is impossible,” she insisted.
In 2022, a contract for the renovation of EKSUTH staff Quarters worth N91 million was awarded but the contractor that carried out the renovation was not listed, instead ‘Executive Secretary’ was listed in the place of the contractor while the class of the contractor was listed as ‘government organisation’ .
Other contracts such as installation of Solar Inverters, hosting of official website, among others were listed against ‘executive secretaries’.
What the Ekiti Bureau of Public Procurement Law Says
The Bureau of Public Procurement law of the state places a premium on awarding contracts to contractors after an open competitive bidding process. The law reads in section 16; all public procurements shall be conducted by open competitive bidding. Section 16g(5) further states that;
“A supplier, contractor or service provider may be a natural person, a legal person or a combination of the two. Suppliers, contractors or service providers acting jointly are jointly and severally liable for all obligations and or responsibility arising from this Law and the nonperformance or improper performance of any contract awarded pursuant to this Law.’
This shows that for contracts awarded in the state, there has to be a contractor.
The only requirement that allows bidding that is not ‘open or competitive’ is the “Special and Restricted method of procurement”. The law states that such cases may apply where; “ the character of the goods or works are subject to rapid technological advances; where the procuring entity seeks to enter into a contract for research, experiment, study or development” or case of national security.
To ensure that there is fairness and competitive bidding, the law further stipulates that, “a bidder should accompany every bid with an affidavit disclosing whether or not any officer of the relevant committees of the procurement entity or Bureau is a former or present director, shareholder or has any pecuniary interest in the bidder and confirm that all information presented in its bid are true and correct in all particulars”.
Section 16 (No. 24) of the law further reads that; “Persons who have been engaged in preparing for a procurement or part of the proceedings thereof may neither bid for the procurement in question or any part thereof either as main contractor or sub-contractor nor may they cooperate in any manner with bidders in the course of preparing their tenders.”
Section 16 lays emphasis on the need for the bidder to meet corporate requirements and not have a relationship with the procuring entity.
In the area of providing clear details of the contracts awarded; paragraph 13 of Section 16 also says; “Copies of all procurement records shall be transmitted to the Bureau not later than 3 months after the end of the financial year and shall show (a) information identifying the procuring entity and the contractors (b) the date of the contract award (c) the value of the contract : and (d) the detailed records of the procurement proceedings.”.
All these provisions show that there has to be a contractor after the bidding process and as such it is unclear why the state failed to list contractors for these projects instead listing ‘executive secretaries and permanent secretaries’ as against the provisions of the law.
It was stated in the law that the accounting officer of the procuring entity shall be responsible for abiding to the contracting law. “The accounting officer of a procuring entity and any officer to whom responsibility is delegated are responsible and accountable for any actions taken or omitted to be taken either in compliance with or in contravention of this Law.”
In many cases, Permanent secretaries are the chief accounting officers of organisations and thus, it is against the ethic of fairness and open competitive bidding as stated in the section 4 subsection C and D of the Ekiti state Public Procurement law enacted in 2010, if the ‘permanent secretaries and executive secretaries’ listed on the open contracting portal are truly the same as the office of permanent secretary of government ministries.
This is asides from the illegality of government agencies bidding for contracts even when they are the procuring entities.
It is also unclear how these ‘permanent secretaries and executive secretaries’ listed in the portal were able to make available documents such as Certificate of no Objection.
Attempts to reach the State Bureau of Public Procurement to seek clarifications and comments on these details posted on its Open Contracting portal proved abortive, as the official phone contacts on the website of the Bureau failed to connect after several attempts.