A new report by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has again brought to the fore the devastating effect of corruption on development in Nigeria. This comes in the form of the grand scale and mind-boggling corruption in constituency projects implementation across the country. The report, which is the outcome of the Phase 5 Executive Tracking Exercise conducted by the ICPC. According to the anti-graft agency, the tracking beamed the searchlight on projects executed under the 2019, 2020 and 2021 budget years.
ICPC released the report on Thursday. The Explainer saw that several of the constituency projects were used to siphon public funds and contractors were unlawfully paid much more than approved funds for some projects. The report also cited other forms of mismanagement and misappropriation of public funds through zonal intervention projects (ZIPs), better known as constituency projects. According to the report, 712 projects spread across 21 states in Nigeria’s six geo-political zones were selected for tracking. The data similarly revealed that 81 out of the projects were petition based.
One of the major highlights of the report focused on the use of soft and empowerment projects as a major conduit for siphoning public resources and engaging in money laundering. The ICPC stated that it increased its surveillance of soft and empowerment projects due to the high risks of corruption associated with them. It said 331 soft and empowerment projects representing 47% of selected projects valued at N9.2 billion were tracked by the Commission.
“Consequently, there was hardly any of such projects tracked on which recoveries and or confiscation was not made as the projects were not executed in line with the Bills of Quantities (BoQs).
“Training exercises, for instance, that were meant to be conducted for two weeks were conducted in just one day. Also, names of beneficiaries were recycled such that their names appeared on two or more of such projects spanning different locations.”
The report also noted that “in tracking and investigating grant projects, the Commission discovered that in some cases, intended beneficiaries got paid far less than it was provided in the BoQ,” the report read in part. For instance, a grant project where beneficiaries were supposed to receive N100,000 each, only N10,000 to N20,000 would be given. In another instance, a grant project of N150 million was distributed to only 10 people with each receiving between N10 million and N15 million.
“The Commission found in some cases, particularly projects executed in Ondo North Senatorial District, the chief executive officer of Centre for Atmospheric Research, Ayingba, a subsidiary of National Space Research and Development Agency, was in the habit of arbitrarily and unlawfully overpaying contractors much more than the contract sums without any approved variation. All overpaid companies were connected in some ways to the sponsor of the projects.
“A larger percentage of empowerment items under the 2020 and 2021 Appropriations were found stashed away in warehouses or private properties of the sponsors.
“In Anambra North Senatorial District for example, the Commission found some projects worth N1.1 billion procured since 2020 hidden and hoarded in the warehouse of the sponsor. So, also in Cross River South, various undistributed items worth N1 billion were found. The Commission has since enforced the distribution of such items to beneficiaries within the affected districts or federal constituencies.
A minimum of N100 billion has been budgeted annually for constituency projects since 2000. Many constituency projects have been riddled with unbridled corruption, while the failing to deliver value for money to long-suffering Nigerians at the grassroots.
According to the report, four projects were abandoned, 19 were not executed and the site of 7 projects could not be found. Meanwhile, ICPC has called for reform of Bureau for Public Procurement to address, the indiscriminate grant of approval for selective tendering, and unnecessary grant of certificate of no objection without proper scrutiny.
“Between 60% to 70% of capital procurement on tracked projects are done through selective tendering and this has enabled most of the procurement fraud being perpetrated by either the MDAs or the projects sponsors.
“BPP and ICPC should collaborate with development Partners like World Bank, AfDB, UN and AU to automatically debar companies debarred by them from being eligible for government contracts for a determined period of time upon meeting prescribed conditions. Government should institute incentives and reward system for contractors that expose illicit demands or transactions in contract evaluation and administration,” the report recommended.