N7.3bn Contract Scandal Rocks JAMB

Allegation of N7.3 billion contracts scandal is rocking the Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB).

The contract scandal is contained in the report of Auditor General of Federation (AGF), Anthony Ayine, which was submitted to the Senate Committee on Public Account, chaired by Senator Mathew Urhoghide.

In the report, the Auditor General accused the JAMB registrar of Approving contracts of about N7.1 billion without due process and also deliberately spliting of contracts of about N247 million, which is in breach of the extant circular of March 2009.

Most of the contracts, according to the report, were awarded between 2012-2013.

The Auditor General said: “Audit examination of procurement documents and other records of JAMB revealed that 21 payment vouchers for amount totaling N7.1 billion were in respect of contracts approved by JAMB registrar outside his authorized approval threshold of N2.5 million for supplies and N5 million for works .

“This contrary to Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) approved revised threshold for service wide application as conveyed in circular No. SGF/OP/1/S.3/VIII/57 of 11 March 2009.

“The registrar/Chief executive was requested to explain why he acted outside his authorized approval threshold and also to furnish evidence of ratification by the JAMB tender Board. Ministerial Tenders Board or Federal Executive Council.

“In response with reference number JAMB/FIN/127Vop.2/171 dater May 2016, the registrar stated that the awards were based on agreement entered into for a pre-determined period preceding the time of the audit and certain job cannot be subjected to general contracting.

“This response did not address the query.

“It was observed that several contracts were split in 2012 and 2013 accounting year in order to circumvent approval limits of the various authorities.

“These contracts were approved by the Registrar who had no authority to do so .