10,000 abandoned projects: Senate should punish culprits

Sir: The recent intention of the 10th National Assembly to probe over 10,000 abandoned Federal Government projects across the country is a welcome development especially now that the economy is trying to find its feet.  These abandoned projects had budgetary approvals with no work done on site and were assumed to have been completed on government papers, as stated by the Deputy Minority Leader of the Senate, Dr. Lere Oyewunmi.

This fraudulent act by contractors and collaborators in the system should be punished to act as deterrent to others and any unspent fund on abandoned projects should be recovered with interest. Considering the procurement monetary threshold for works of N30 million to less than N 1.5 billion, the value of the abandoned projects which were assumed to have been completed on government papers is N300 billion to less than N15 trillion.

This great financial loss to the economy would have improved the quality of lives of the citizenry if the projects were not abandoned. The construction of these projects would have created many direct and indirect jobs for economic sustainability of the locals around the site, while the standard of living of the intended users would have been improved at the end of the construction.

Despite the strong public procurement law (Public Procurement Act 2007) and highly effective anti-corruption agencies, one would have thought that this practice of abandoning projects will be impossible. This practice is aided by the strong collaboration of stakeholders in the procurement and contract administration process: procuring entity, consultants, contractors, auditors inter alia. Contract administration best practice requires that a contractor submits a project plan for the works to be achieved with the 30 per cent mobilisation fee before its release, in addition to the provision of a performance guarantee which financially reimburses the government in the event of non-performance of the contract.

Furthermore, works done by the contractor should be measured on-site with a value attached to it, which will determine whether or not the contractor is due for payment at intervals. With these best practices, it will be impossible for projects to be abandoned after being fully paid for.

For the probe to be meaningful to the citizenry, it should be comprehensive. The roles played by various stakeholders in the contract administration process should be stated, especially the consultants who measured and valued the work done on the site, and prepared payment certificates for work not done, the payment approving authority, the auditor who visited the sites and never raised a query about the mismatch of payment with work done inter alia.

All those involved in this fraudulent practice must be arrested by the security and anti-corruption agencies and punished in line with financial crimes law. The lost fund must also be recovered with interest.
Indicted contractors and consultants should be blacklisted, with the practising licences of the consultants withdrawn by the relevant professional regulatory agencies.

Nigeria shall rise above the current challenges. God bless Nigeria.
Sowunmi Williams, an architect, estate surveyor & valuer, PMI -certified project manager and chartered accountant, wrote from Abuja.