Former FMBN boss has been summoned by Senate over N3bn contract

The question raised by the AuGF in the report read, “Audit found that a contract was awarded to a contractor in four phases in an entire contract sum of N3,045,391,531.97. “A sum of N 644,040,000.00 was also provided in the Bill of Quantities for overseas instruction and other deliverables from the fourth and third stages of the arrangement, however, there was no evidence of implementation, in contravention of Financial Regulations 70.”
“Audit further detected, from a physical review of the site, a supply of N 80, 000,000.00 was created and paid for the execution of”Unified Access and Attendance System” however, the device was not functioning in accordance with specifications.

” A settlement agreement was entered into by the FMBN and Messrs Starter-Point Limited about the style of repayment of outstanding as a result of the lender. “It was also detected, from the examination of payment documents, the contractor was overpaid at the amount of N118,717,892.72 that resulted from irregular addition of 5 per cent Withholding Tax from the Bill of Quantity on each of the four phases of this contract. “The settlement agreement between the bank and the seller has also taken into account the payment made for your own off-shore training which was not done by the vendor. “No last payment was made by the lender on the stage four job.”

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“Payment of the contract sum for phases three and four were made to the contract from the prior Management depending on the landmark achievement as stated in the contract arrangement. “Each payment was licensed by Messes. Comsoft Limited, the in-house consultant appointed by the bank for the job.
Reacting to the AuGF, the Managing Director of FMBN, Mr. Ahmed Musa Dangiwa, told the panel that the contract has been granted in 2011 by the previous management. The Senate panel, now scrutinising the 2015-2018 report of the Auditor General for the Federation, chose after a query raised from the FMBN by the AuGF from the record.

He further demanded the particulars of the contractor who executed the contract. The Senate Public Accounts Committee has summoned a former managing director of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, Mallam Gimba Yau Kumo, to appear before it to explain the motive supporting the alleged irregular award of N3bn if he was at the helms of the affairs of the bank. “Audit nonetheless noticed the second, fourth and third phases of the contract were over the acceptance thresholds of the Bank.

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“This (present ) management after an assessment of the functioning of the contractor’s responsibilities about the contract, expressed dissatisfaction with the support rendered by the builder. The Chairman of SPAC, Senator Matthew Urhoghide, in the last sitting of this panel, stated the Auditor General’s report demonstrated that the contract had been granted in four stages to one contractor. Dangiwa stated,

“The waiver was granted by the previous management in 2011 to design, construct and implement a Mortgage Banking Business Process Option workflow and infrastructure with the purpose of producing enterprise applications which will integrate each of the Bank’s procedures.

“Based on the contract specifications, the stage three modules were completed and operational, however, off-shore training wasn’t conducted for this phase. Not satisfied with the presentation, the Chairman of this Committee, arranged for the former MD of this FMBN to appear before the board and provide additional explanation.

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“The Direction, thereafter, severally engaged the contractor over all the problems surrounding the project including amongst others, the issue of overpayment of the amount of N118m as a result of erroneous addition of WHT into the contract award sum in each of the four phases as well as additional payment to the contractor. enate summons former FMBN boss over N3bn contract