TheCable

Network for the Actualisation of Social Growth and Viable Development (NEFGAD), a procurement advocacy group, has faulted the relocation of a N141 million projects by the office of the senior special assistant to the president on sustainable development goals (OSSAP-SDGs).

On Thursday, the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ) reported that OSSAP-SDGs awarded the contract for the construction of one skill acquisition centre and one block of six classrooms at Ajeromi Primary School in Lagos at the cost of N147 million.

According to the report, the fund for the contract was paid into the “account of a restaurant,” while the project was not situated in its designated location.

The report revealed that the skill acquisition centre was constructed in Ladi-Lak Nursery and Primary School on 2, Randle Road, Apapa, and the block of six classrooms in Metropolitan Nursery and Primary School, Adekunle Deen Street, Off Mile 2-Ijora Expressway, Ijora.

However, in a response to the report, the OSSAP-SDGs said the projects’ cost was N141 million and not N147 million quoted by FIJ, adding that the structures have been built but on another site.

According to Rotimi Ajayi, OSSAP-SDGs’ head of communication, the insufficient space at the projects’ original site in Ajeromi-Ifelodun LGA  necessitated the relocation.

Reacting to the rebuttal of the OSSAP-SDGs’ office, NEFGAD described the relocation of the project from the original site as “an aberration unknown to extant procurement regulations”.

In a statement on Saturday, Akingunola Omoniyi, the head of NEFGAD, said the relocation of the project during execution reflected a “total disconnect” and an indication that the “entire procurement proceeding is standing on nothing”.

“NEFGAD says that a public procurement proceeding is unique in its entirety with no room for any ambiguity that will make it unimplementable or untraceable for public accountability and scrutiny, hence, the mandatory requirement of a project evaluation/feasibility and impacts assessments reports as a precondition for any procurement proceeding, these reports serve as Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) carrying all genetic information of the project including project location, land survey and other geo-features necessary to the successful implementation/execution of the project,” the statement reads.

“The relocation of this project during execution shows total disconnect, meaning the entire procurement proceeding is standing on nothing.

“Changing project location during project implementation is an aberration unknown to extant procurement regulations and can best be described as changing the goalpost in the middle of a game.

“The project relocated from its original site has become null and void. The executed project in the new location is a brand new project requiring an entirely new procurement proceeding/process to gain legality.

“The SDG office’s position is unacceptable and would not go unchallenged through appropriate legal means.”