Somtochukwu

Reps panel probes BPP director ‘born in 1996 but employed in 1992’

The house of representatives is investigating Lantewa Fatsuma Lawal, a deputy director of accounts at the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP).

Lawal, from Bade local government area of Yobe state, is on grade level 16. The deputy director was reportedly born in 1996 but gained employment in 1992.

The house committee on public procurement discovered the alleged anomaly when BPP officials appeared before it to defend the agency’s 2021 budget on Thursday.

Thereafter, the lawmakers set up a sub-committee to probe the alleged irregularity and to get more facts on the matter.

The committee expressed displeasure that it was taking long for the agency to submit reports on 32 agencies.

Kingsley Oju, deputy chairman of the committee, said the performance of the BPP is less than five percent.

“It baffles this committee that since the appointment of the DG, it is taking about four years to submit report from 32 agencies out of over 850 agencies for us to know whether they are complying with the law,” Oju said.

“We are shocked as a committee on public procurement that we don’t even have materials to work. We are doing budget defence, but this committee is vested with the responsibility to ascertain the usage of previous funds.

“I agree with you that audit is going on, but if your performance is less than five percent, I don’t think we are ready to do the job.

“I, therefore, move a motion that the committee should mandate the bureau to submit all procurement audit report of 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 before the end of this year.”

Mamman Ahmadu, BPP director-general, said in 2020, of the sum of N1.485 billion allocated to the bureau, N250.479 million was for capital expenditure; N750.060 million for overhead while N484.236 million was for personnel expenditure.

“We have published some procurement audit and submitted same to the committee,” Ahmadu said.

But Nicholas Ossai, a lawmaker from Delta, tackled the BPP DG, accusing him of not doing his job.

“It means you have been in office for four years now and yet your office has not done its job,” Ossai said.

“I see this as an infraction to the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria. If that is so, the house should be able to summon the political courage and will and be able to do the needful and an affront on the constitution and the appropriation act.”

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