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By Madu Obi
The allegation of the diversion of N.6.7 billion belonging to the Anambra State Universal Basic Education Board, ASUBEB, is causing disquiet in the state, even as the Executive Chairman of the Board, Associate Professor Vera Nwadinobi said the money is intact.
Some state government and ASUBEB officials have already been invited by the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC, over the allegation.
Among the allegations was that the list of qualified bids placed on the notice board of ASUBEB were removed and replaced with political patronage lists of contractors who did not bid for the projects during the last administration in the state. It was gathered that the N6.7 Billion UBEC contract is for 2019, 2020 and 2021.
Addressing reporters at ASUBEB headquarters in Awka, the executive chairman of the board described as untrue the allegation that contracts were awarded to contractors who did not bid for the jobs.
She said: "In line with the Public Procurement Act (PPA), we advertised for the 2019, 2020 and 2021 and received over 1000 bids for barely 200 jobs.
All the bids passed through technical evaluation and those that were found competent enough were recommended for the next stage of the procurement process which is financial bid opening.
"The financial bid opening was also done publicly, after which the most responsive bids were selected for award of contracts. "
She said that while the bidding was going on, there was an attempt to hijack the process by a staff of the board, who was a director. It was the said director, she stated, that wrote petitions after he had been transferred to another establishment.
According to her, before the present board was appointed, the said director was holding three strategic positions in the board.
Nwadinobi added: "He was Director PRS, Director, Procurement and Director, Physical Planning. The first position was the one he earned through normal promotion as a public servant, while he gave himself the other two positions.
For several years, he was virtually in charge of contracts and he awarded contracts to whomsoever he wished. He was so powerful that everyone dreaded him, including past chairmen and members.
"At the end of the immediate past administration, he was being investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, for abuse of office where he was accused of awarding contracts to companies he personally registered and to his friends and cronies.
"It was our refusal of his attempt to hijack the process as usual that resulted to his writing petitions to malign the board and bring its image into disrepute."
She explained that the procurement cadre was newly established in the state civil service following Governor Soludo's insistence on due process in award of contracts, adding that this was what led to the establishment of a Bureau on Public Procurement in the state and subsequent staffing of the bureau.
She said that it was also to streamline the anomalies that the board got a waiver from Governor Soludo to direct the Head of Service to post procurement officers to the board to ensure that due process is followed in the award of contracts, adding that two officers have been posted to ASUBEB.
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