Falana Writes ICPC, Wants CBN Investigated for Alleged Contract Scam

 

Legal luminary, Mr. Femi Falana, SAN, has requested the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), to investigate the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on the process leading to the award and termination of contract for CBN/NDIC Project on Regulatory and Reporting Solution.

Falana said from available records with his firm, the processes leading to the tender and eventual award of the contract to Blueprint Business Technologies Limited, is fraught with discrepancies and breach of the Public Procurement Act.

According to Falana in a letter obtained by OSUN DEFENDER yesterday, the ICPC had been misled by an earlier report from the Bureau of Public Procurement which he said was desperately assembled and tailored to justify the fraudulent outcome of the tender, against Magbel Technology Limited.

He said although, the process of the contract has since been terminated after award, his clients, Magbel Technology Limited, are interested in due diligence and eventual award of the contract to them, after meeting up the mandatory Technical and Cost evaluation mandatory for the approval of relevant authorities for the startup of the project.

Signed by the Principal Prosecutor, Falana and Falana Chambers, Femi Akinyemi and Dated August 26, 2022, the letter reads: “It may interest you to know that the Blueprint Business Technologies Limited scored zero (0/10) in the financial bid evaluation and because the Bureau of Public Procurement could not justify and defend their decision, they fabricated a 8.84/10 score as reflected in your reply, because it is unjustifiable that a company that scored zero in the financial bid eventually won the contract.

“Moreover, it is not the practice to award a contract to a company without a Financial Bid in a Competitive Tender.

“It is not out of place to contend that there is more to the assessment report than what It shows. Blueprint Business Technologies Limited scored zero in the Financial Bidding only because the CBN did not have access to tenderers’ Financial Bid information until the envelopes were opened.

“Hence, the 0/10 scored. The Quality and Cost Selection Method means that a successful tenderer must pass both the Quality test and Cost test criteria. As a result, the presentation by the CBN and BPP to your Commission looks normal based on the fraudulent points allocated.

“If the document passed on to your Commission had shown that Blueprint Business Technologies got zero over ten (0/10), your position would not have been the same.

“We made bold to say that the BPP initially could not subscribe to the assessment criteria. Also, the CBN could not produce assessment score sheets of members of the committee and it tried vigorously to justify the failure to produce the sheets with a flimsy explanation that the scores were put on excel sheet and that they could not retrieve same.

“Had the Committee members’ individual assessment spreadsheet been produced, it would have further revealed the doggy practices that marred the overall bidding process. The Certified True Copy of the Bureau of Public Procurement report is herewith attached and marked Annexure C.

“The bids submitted by the vendors, including Blueprint Business Technologies Limited, covered training and was in line with the tender guidelines and requirements. Also, there is an element of fraud and/or misrepresentation in the document/committee report review provided whereby the cost of training with an allocation of 340 million naira was separated from the entire contract cost, thereby giving a wrong picture of the amount that the contract was awarded for.

“The addition of about N3.30 billion that they claimed to have awarded the contract to Blueprint Business Technologies Limited plus the cost of training of about N340million and the cost due to review amounts to about N6,160,000,000.

“While any variation could not be justified based on the exchange rate because tender was strictly in local currency, BPP report technically signposted that the fraudulent way the CBN could take to get approval for the 78% increase above contract value.

“That the review was more than 15% of the contract and more than N1billion, and as a result of this, the 1st defendant was asked to comply with the directive of Secretary to the Government of the Federation by getting initial approval from the Presidency before processing “NO OBJECTION certificate to effect the additional payment. There is no basis for the 78% cost review of the contact sum.

“Consequently, we request you to use your good offices to investigate the award of the contract as it was marred by corruption and fraud of monumental proportion.”