The National Economic Council, yesterday, cancelled the contract awarded by the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo for the construction of Primary Health Care Centres in the 774 local governments in the country, saying the contract was not only unconstitutional, the deduction of money from the accounts of the local governments was irregular.
President Umaru Yar'Adua had set up a committee to investigate the deduction of money from the accounts of local governments in the country to fund the construction of the Primary Health Care Centres following an outcry from local and state governments that they were not consulted before the decision to deduct the money from local government accounts was made.
Mathan Nigeria Limited won the contract for the construction of the primary health care centres in the 774 Local Government Areas of the country.
The then Minister of Information and Communications, Mr Frank Nweke, had alleged that the leadership of the Association of Local Government of Nigeria was taken along before the contracts were awarded.
But announcing the suspension of the contract in August this year, the Minister of Finance, Dr Shamsudeen Usman, explained that some illegalities had been detected in the deductions.
He explained that “as at now, N18 billion has been deducted although not all of that has been paid over to the contractors. N3.7 billion deducted for July has not been remitted and that is being kept in an escrow account in the CBN.
There is also the little over N9 billion that is with the bank through which these payments are being done.
That is being recovered and is going to be kept in the escrow account. So, we have a total of about N5.8 billion that would have gone out to the contractor.
Some states wrote to the president to say that they did not give any authority for this project to be started on their behalf. Some local governments too said they did not give such authorisation.”
Addressing State House correspondents at the end of yesterday’s National Economic Council meeting, the Governor of the Central Bank (CBN), Professor Chukwuma Soludo, said the Council directed that for Local Government Areas where work had not commenced, the money deducted from their accounts and being held at Bank PHB and the Central Bank should be returned to them.
The CBN governor who was flanked by the governors of Akwa Ibom and Kebbi states, Chief Godswill Akpabio and Alhaji Dakingari respectively said the awards of the contracts were irregular.
“The National Economic Council agreed that the MoU between the ALGON and Mathan be terminated and that the outstanding balance in the accounts of Bank PHB and the Central Bank that has been deducted already be returned to the various local governments.
"Council also directed that there should be reconciliation between the various local governments where the projects have commenced, state governments should liaise with the local governments to ascertain the level of work that has been done and what should be deducted,” he said.
The council also set up a committee on how to share money from the excess crude account under the chairmanship of the Governor of Kwara State, Bukola Saraki and is made up of the Governors of Benue, Gabriel Suswam and Bauchi, Isa Yuguda and has the minister of Finance and the CBN governor as members.
The Council, the CBN Governor explained, discussed “modalities and issues on matters arising on the management of the excess crude account and the issues about savings from the excess crude and what to do with the excess crude, how to spend it and what to spend it on.
At the end of the deliberations, the Council resolved to set up a committee to further work out the modalities by the Ministry of Finance. The membership of the committee is three governors, chaired by the governor of Kwara who is the chairman of the Governors’ Forum and to be made up of the governors of Benue and Bauchi States.
Others include the governor of Central Bank, the Ministers of Finance and Economic Planning, the Executive Secretary of National Planning and the Special Assistant to the Vice President as the secretariat.
They are to, within the next one week, work out the modalities on the sharing of the excess crude”.
N1.82bn excess crude funds for sharing
The Governor of Akwa Ibom state, Godswill Akpabio explained further “the Council was briefed that so far $1.818 billion excess funds with the CBN ought to have been returned to the states.
These were monies that were deducted from the states. The $1.818 billion would be refunded and shared amongst the states in the next couple of days.
That is in addition to N330 billion, which will be shared amongst the states from the federation account.”
Other issues discussed were the threat of famine in the northern part of the country as a result of a shortfall in rain this year.
By Ben Agande
Vanguard
Monday, December 10, 2007
