The Bureau of Public Enterprises said Tuesday the consultany fees it paid out last May was properly approved according to extant guidelines.
The bureau in a statement by its Head of Public Communications, Mr. Alex Okoh, said that the National Council on Privatisation duly approved the payments, which were made to Messrs. J.k. Gadzama & Partners and the Office of the Accountant Feneral of the Federatin.
According to the statement, “the NCP at its Meeting held on Thursday May 9, 2013 considered and approved the award of a contract to Messrs J.K. Gadzama & Partners as the Consultant, Legal advisory Services for the winding up of PHCN Plc in the sum of Nine hundred and twenty nine million, six hundred and thirteen thousand, one hundred and eighty –eight naira, ninety-nine kobo (N929,613,188.94) only for a period of six (6) months after obtaining a BPP “No Objection”.
“The Office of Attorney-General had earlier objected to the necessity of the procurement, but later withdrew its objection and endorsed the engagement of Messrs Gadzama & Partners for the Legal Ad n Services vide a letter presented to the NCP ref: HAGF/BPP/2029.14/Vol.1, dated 17th September 2014.
“Consequently, the Council at its meeting held on April 16, 2015, finally approved that BPE should, said immediately proceed to execute the contract with Messrs J’K’ Gadzama & Partners as the Consultant, Legal Advisory Services for the winding up of PHCN Plc in the sum of N929,613,188.94 based on the “No Objection” earlier granted by BPP.
“The legal consultancy is to novate the over 500 court cases pending against PHCN to NELMCO and also provide routes of title to purchasers of PHCN non-core assets as well as wind down PHCN among other terms of reference.”
The statement also explained the payment of N500million to the Office Of The Accountant General Of The Federation As Consultancy.
It said, “The OAGF via memos with reference numbers: OAGF/SD/ABJ/247/1V/984 dated October 18, 2013 and OAGF/SD/247/V/1032 dated December 5, 2013, had written to the Office of the Vice-President to be reimbursed N500million as expenses the Office incurred for the handling of the payment of the labour liabilities of the workers of the PHCN. These included:
1. Payment for engagement of an IT Consultant who had been conducting integrity and quality checks on data for payment submitted by the BPE;
2. Payment to a Consultant who undertook an IT-based reconciliation between its (OAGF)’s record of payment and reports received from the paying banks;
3. Purchase of consumable items like toner, papers, compact disk, flash drive etc needed for the payment exercise;
4. Cost of adverts on the payment exercise in several national newspapers; and
5. Payment of allowances to staff of the OAGF who worked overtime including Saturdays and Sundays to ensure the payments were effected without delay. The OAGF had argued in the memos that the approval of the amount was necessary because of the meagre Overhead Allocations in their 2013 and 2014 budgets and the exercise had exerted on financial position of the office.
“Based on this, the NCP gave approval for the disbursement of the sums. Note that government does not pay consultancy fees to its agencies, it only covers the cost of getting the job done.
“Recruitment of Staff In Line With the BPE’s Condition Of Service:
Based on the manpower gap in the Bureau, the then Director General of the Bureau, Ms. Bolanle Onagoruwa on June 29, 2011, applied to the Head of Service for approval to recruit qualified manpower to fill identified vacancies and requirements. Though the approval was obtained in 2011, the budgetary allocation was only obtained in March 2015.
“The Bureau has sought and obtained all relevant approvals from the Federal Character Commission (FCC) and other relevant government agencies for the recruitment.”
