Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha yesterday announced that two National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) contracts have been put on hold after it was discovered that the sums were significantly increased without approval being granted.
At a press conference to address the issue, Mustapha said that the requests for variations in the contracts were a cause of concern for him. As a result, he said he has since halted works and has asked the Auditor General to investigate suspected corruption.
According to Mustapha, the contracts in Region Four amount to close to $100 million and were awarded during the last weeks of the APNU+AFC administration.
The contracts were awarded on July 1st and July 6th, respectively.
Mustapha said that the contract which was awarded on July 1st amounts to $64,716,350. This contract, he said, requires that the contractor operate and supervise NDIA excavators and provide fuel for them.
He said the original bill of quantities was for approximately 44,000 rods of channel to be dug and 75,000 cubic yards of canals to be excavated.
A request was later made for a variation by the contractor and the contract was extended by an additional $46,500,000.
“To date, a request was made for variation for this contract. The contractor would have cleared 25,000 rods out of the 75,000 that he was contracted to clear and he has dug 101,000 cubic yards of canals,” Mustapha said.
The second contract, he added was for the same type of activities. It was awarded on July 6th to the tune of $34,114, 275. The budgeted quantities were 28,000 rods of channel to be cleared and 30,000 cubic yards of canal to be excavated.
“The date the contract was extended for variation, the contractor would have completed 19,880 rods and cleared 21,300 (cubic yards), less than the amounts that were budgeted for,” Mustapha said.
In this instance, although the contractor completed less work, the contract was extended by $35,000,000.
Mustapha said that when the matters went to Cabinet for no-objection, the discrepancies were identified and the Auditor General was immediately called in to conduct an investigation.
He said he is awaiting feedback before he can address Cabinet on the way forward.
Mustapha further said that the discovery highlights possible collusion that has been occurring in the award of contracts over the years.
“This go to show how these entities have been operating over the years….This was a cause for concern… it speaks to collusion in awarding the contract and fraudulent increases in the rate of work,” Mustapha said.
“It shows means of how contracts used to be awarded under the guise of variation to manipulate and give to families and preferred contractors,” he added.
Mustapha also said that when a contract is increased without approval, it points to a breach of the Procurement Act.
“For me this is a breach of the national Procurement Act…..extending contracts are not unusual but doing it almost 100 per cent is a breach and concern for me as Minister,” he noted.
Revamping
The minister also spoke of his plans to revamp the operations of agencies such as the NDIA.
He said he met with the NDIA Board yesterday morning and told them that they need to make recommendations which he will review and possibly implement in an effort to introduce a system that is corruption-free.
“Places like the NDIA and other entities we are looking seriously to revamp the operation in these places because a lot of funds are going to these places. We have to have value for our money and over the years there have been a lot of accusations about people colluding with contractors and increasing the rate [for] these works in the area,” Mustapha explained.
In the ministry, he said the NDIA is one of the entities with the largest budgets in terms of capital programmes.
As part of the revamp, he said, would be the transfer engineers so that they won’t be in one area for too long.
