Presidential c’ttee indicts Dasuki, 300 NSA contractors

A presidential committee raised to probe contracts awarded by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) from 2011 to 2015 has indicted over 300 companies and prominent citizens including serving and retired military officers.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, disclosed this in a statement last night.
Shehu, who noted that the committee was different from the one currently investigating the defence arms and equipment procurement, said over N7 billion had so far been recovered from the indicted companies and individuals.
He said another N41bn was to be refunded by the indicted companies while further investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had been ordered to determine whether another N75bn  should be recovered from some of the companies for non-executed or partially executed contracts.
He said the committee further established that one of the indicted companies, Societe D’Equipment International was overpaid to the tune of 7.9m euros and $7.09m.
He said the committee discovered that there was a total disregard of salient provisions of the Public Procurement Act in the award of contracts by ONSA, adding that several contractors were over paid; while others were given full upfront payments contrary to their contract terms and agreements in force.
He said there was also evidence of payments to individuals and companies by ONSA without any contractual agreement or evidence of jobs executed.
Among the named individuals that received payments without contractual agreements are: former NSA Col Sambo Dasuki, Bello Matawalle, BrigGen AS Mormoni-Bashir, Alhaji Umar Sani, Colonel Bello Fadile. Alhaji Bashir Yaguda and Dr Tunji Olagunju.
Shehu said: “The committee has made attempts and succeeded in recovering some of the funds from these individuals and organisations amounting to N3,537,549,223.04; $8,000,000.00; and houses worth N512 million from 32 companies.”
He said some individuals and companies received N7.1bn without evidence of contractual agreements or jobs done. The presidential spokesman said the committee also revealed that some companies that failed to execute contracts or did so partially were to make refunds.
According to him, the total amount to be refunded is N19,896,539,125.20; $43,771,433.73 and two houses in Abuja worth N260 million.
He said the committee also revealed that 15 companies were awarded contracts that required further investigation to ascertain the status of their contracts. Shehu said the total value of the contracts awarded in this category was N11.7bn, $202.1m and €4,114,752.96.