- Buhari administration plotting violation of Nigeria’s procurement law in award of $800million contract
by Samuel Ogundipe,
The Muhammadu Buhari administration is scheming to grant special but illegal concession to an American power distribution company for the rehabilitation of high-voltage transmission lines across the country, in a deal that could breach the country’s extant procurement provisions, PREMIUM TIMES can report.
This newspaper has obtained documents showing how bureaucrats and politicians are strategising to award the $800 million contract to CTC Global, an electric utility firm based in California.
Should the administration proceed with the contract in the manner being planned, the award would make an absolute mockery of the administration’s platitudes about fighting corruption, some administration insiders told PREMIUM TIMES.
Already, Abubakar Atiku, the managing director of Transmission Company of Nigeria, has forwarded a recommendation letter for the award of the contract to CTC Global to Tunde Fashola, the minister of works, power and housing.
After making effusive case for a blanket adoption of CTC Global, without any competitive bidding, Mr. Atiku urged the minister to “accept the initial proposal” and “provide” a contract letter to the firm.
In the letter, dated November 18, 2016, Mr. Atiku said the deal would see Nigeria’s existing 330KV and 132 KV power transmission cables upgraded from the current Aluminium Conductor Steel Reinforced (ACSRs) types to Aluminium Conductor Composite Core Conductors (ACCC).
The ACCC is an improved technology that has twice the capacity of the ACSRs and can easily be retrofitted on the existing lines, eliminating the hurdles of dismantling current cables to lay new ones, experts say.
But the modality being adopted for the award of the contract appears a contravention of federal laws on award of contracts which require open advertisement and competitive bidding for government jobs and supplies. Read full in PremiumTimes