The Committee on Public Procurement of the House of Representatives has queried the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) over alleged ghost worker on its payroll.
At a budget defence session with the Director-General of BPP, Mamman Ahmadu in Abuja on Thursday, the Committee discovered that a personnel born in 1996 started receiving salary from the BPP in 1992 and her details were not on the establishment’s nominal roll.
BPP was therefore given a matching order to submit its nominal roll for proper vetting.
The Bureau was also directed by the Committee to account for over 52 million naira spent on local travels and training in 2020.
The members observed that in 4 years, the BPP has only submitted Procurement Audit reports of 32 agencies out of over 800 in the Federation, despite budgetary allocation for the exercise yearly.
The committee therefore resolved to Constitute a technical committee to investigate budgeted funds to the bureau from 2016 till date.
The Committee also queried the 22.million naira spent on welfare.
The Bureau was directed to furnish the committee with explanations on what constitutes
the welfare and their beneficiaries.
The sum of 5.6 million naira was expended on International travels despite Covid 19 travel restrictions.
Legal services of 50 million naira and another local training of 17 million naira were all questioned by Members of the Committee.
Upon the disclosure by the Director-General that out of the sum of 437.5 million naira so far released
for overhead, N196.7 million has been utilized leaving a balance of 240.8 million naira which is already committed to settle pending liabilities, the Committee directed the BPP to furnish it with a detailed breakdown of all pending liabilities
The BPP is proposing an A total of 1.4 billion naira has been proposed for expenditure for the year 202, out of which 205.9 million naira is for capital, 479.8 million naira for personnel and 750 million naira is set aside for overhead expenditure.
