Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts has queried the management of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) over a N5.1 billion contract.
The contract was awarded for the renovations of its corporate headquarters in Lagos.
Chairman of the committee, Woke Oke, queried the NPA management led by its Managing Director, Mrs Hadiza Bala-Usman, at an investigative hearing on Thursday.
The Auditor-General of the Federation had raised a query on the contract awarded in 2011.
The contract had a completion period of 15 months, but without a valid signed contractual agreement with the contracting firm.
It was awarded for the renovations of the NPA Headquarters in Lagos and relocation of some of the offices from the headquarters to other locations.
The Reps query alleged that there was no valid signed contractual agreement in place as at 2013, when the contract ought to have been completed and money paid out.
Bala-Usman, however, said the contract was awarded by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) with records that showed a valid signed contractual agreement.
The committee chairman, however, expressed concern over the contractual agreement and insisted that the NPA make available the original copies of the signed agreement.
He said the photocopies of the documents were not clear enough to be read.
Oke explained that the original copies of the agreement were the only way to clear the organisation of the audit query.
Meanwhile, the House Committee on Works, has summoned the Director General of the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Mamman Ahmadu, to appear before it over the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria Road..
The BPP DG had failed to attend a meeting with the committee on Wednesday, while officials of the agency, who attended the parley could not give cogent reasons for his absence.
Chairman of the Committee, Abubakar Kabir Abubakar, decried the absence of the DG, noting that it was a slight on the entire Green Chamber for him to fail to honour the invitation of the committee, without deeming necessary i to write to the Committee to give his reason for his absence at the parley.