Renovation of NPA headquarters contract may be probed

THE controversial renovation of the headquarters building of the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, may be probed, sources close to the agency disclosed this to National Daily at the weekend.

It will be recalled that the N5billion contract was awarded to Messrs Sageto Nigeria Limited, a company in which the immediate past vice-President allegedly has commanding interests.

Investigations by the National Daily reveals that the contract was awarded about seven years ago after fire gutted a portion of the six-storey building, it is yet to be completed even though a substantial percent of the contract sum has been paid to the contractor.

It was also gathered that some people had petitioned the supervising ministry about the alleged shoddy jobs done by the contractor.

National Daily also gathered that there were allegations that the multibillion contract may have been over-valued in that it was to include physical renovation and interior decoration.

Again, there are insinuations that the ex-Vice President may have taken advantage of his position to secure the contract.

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The NPA headquarters renovation contract was awarded shortly after the tenure of Mallam Abduls Salam Mohammed who was succeeded by Engineer Omar Suleiman.
However, Abdul Salam Mohammed was removed as Managing Director when the bid for the contract of the NPA headquarters was in progress.

There are also strong insinuations that the cost of the contract and the rented office space into which NPA staff moved when the renovation started might have inflated hence the need for the contract to be scrutinized thoroughly.

Concluding, it is thereby revealed that among the many assignments handed down to the new NPA boss Ms Hadiza Bala Usman is to dig into several allegations of financial infractions in the agency, and that the renovation contract is one of them.

National Daily gathered that although the NPA headquarters renovation contract went through different layers of scrutiny such as the Federal Executive Council, FEC, the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) investigations should be conducted to ensure that the personalities involved are not swayed in favour of the contract.