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The Nigeria Police Force spent over N3 billion on controversial contracts and unexecuted projects in 2019, an audit report has revealed.
About one-third of the money was paid for 10 contracts awarded to three firms owned by the same person, without proper disclosure, the report stated.
These were part of the findings of the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation after an audit of government ministries, departments and agencies in 2019.
The report, released in September 2021, was titled Auditor-General’s report on ‘Non-compliance/Internal Control Weakness Issues in Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government of Nigeria for the Year ended December 31, 2019.’
The 490-page report was recently submitted to the clerk of the National Assembly as Nigeria’s Constitution provides.
In the report, the auditor-general said the anomalies discovered in the accounts of the Nigeria Police Force could be attributed to weaknesses in its internal control system. It could also amount to a loss of government funds and/or diversion of public funds, the report stated.
The police management, however, did not respond to all the queries and concerns raised by the auditor-general.
One person, three firms, N1.1 billion
One of the issues raised in the report is about irregularities in the award and execution of contracts for the procurement of security items for the police. The report observed that a single entity used three different companies to get ten contracts in 2019.
It said “ten contracts totalling N1.1 billion were awarded to a single proprietor in the name of different companies.
In the companies’ profiles, the contact phone numbers and email addresses of the three companies were the same and the three companies did not disclose their relationship by the fundamental principles of procurement as required by extant regulation,” the report stated.
The audit document said this violates Section 16 (8) of the Public Procurement Act 2007 which states that “whenever it is established by a procuring entity or the Bureau that any or a combination of the situations set out exist, a bidder may have its bid or tender excluded from any particular procurement proceedings if:…(g) “the bidder fails to submit a statement regarding its dominating or subsidiary relationships concerning other parties to the proceedings and persons acting on behalf of the procuring entity participating in the same proceeding or who remains insubordinate relationship with other participants to the proceedings.”
It said the above irregularities could be attributed to “weaknesses” in the internal control system at the Nigeria Police Force, the principal law enforcement agency in the country.
Likewise, the inherent risks in the anomalies of the breach of the regulation, according to the report, are “award of contract to the incompetent contractor, payments for jobs not executed and diversion of public fund.”
The auditor general requested that the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) “furnish” reasons why contracts were awarded to companies owned by the same persons. It further asked the IGP to “account for the sum of 1,136,715,200.00 (One billion, one hundred and thirty-six million, seven hundred and fifteen thousand, two hundred naira).”
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