BPP statements misleading, says Fashola – TheNigerialawyer

The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has said
that statements credited to the Bureau of Public Procurement as
regards inflated contracts in ministries spearheaded by the former
Lagos State Governor were misleading.

It was reported on Monday that BPP saved N26bn for the Federal
Government in 2018 alone by revising the contract sums of
government contracts approved by some ministries, departments, and
agencies.

BPP stated that 86 certificates of “No Objection’’ for contracts
totalling N1.421tn were initially awarded before it was reduced to
N1.394tn.

The highest reduction was made from the Ministry of Power,
Works, and Housing where N22.22bn was cut from a request of
N877.40bn.

Reacting to the report, Fashola, who spoke through his Special
Adviser on Communications, Hakeem Bello, also asked that the BPP
should make its rates public.

A statement issued by the minister’s aide read, “The attention
of the Minister of Works and Housing has been drawn to headlines
from reports credited to the BPP about its having ‘saved over
N26bn’ for the Federal Government in the year 2018 by revising down
‘inflated’ contract sums by government contractors, some of which
emanated from the erstwhile Ministry of Power, Works, and
Housing.

“Being a department of the same government, ordinarily this
should not warrant a reply. However, the misleading nature of the
reporting in the media and the statements credited to BPP compel a
response for the purposes of clarification and enlightenment of the
public.”

The minister argued that any person who took time to read the
provisions of the Public Procurement Act, which created the BPP
would understand that no contract could be awarded until BPP
certified that it had “no objection.”

Fashola said, “Therefore there was no inflated contract because
BPP clearly stated that it reduced the costs, and according to BPP
she ‘saved over N26bn.’

“And this is the heart of the matter because BPP’s ‘savings’ can
only be a subjective assessment based on rates quoted by
contractors, reviewed by the ministry and sent to BPP for
certification.”

He added, “Until BPP publishes its rates which the then Ministry
of Power, Works and Housing has demanded in writing, there can be
no objective basis for determining whether any savings were indeed
made if only BPP knows its own rates for procurement.”

The minister stressed that once rates were published and design
was known, quantities could be ascertained and costs could be
determined.

“This is the field of quantity surveyors and construction
economists, and the Minister of Works and Housing has not made any
secret about his call for a revision of the Public Procurement Act
to resolve this and other gaps in the law,” Fashola stated.

He stated that during the first term of the current
administration, the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing had
commissioned the compilation of a service wide rate of major items
of procurement from the largest to the smallest for the BPP to
consider, adopt or amend and publish.

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