₦900b probe: Senators, Reps to return fake projects funds

Investigators are hitting the road today in search of lawmakers’ ₦900b constituency projects in states.

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) is verifying constituency projects executed by immediate past senators and members of the House of Representatives.

The commission said it will make recoveries on projects/contracts confirmed to have been inflated or in which contractors under performed or did not perform at all.

To be verified are 180 key projects in the 36 states at the rate of five per state.

The probe covers projects between 2015 and 2018 embarked upon by members of the 8th National Assembly.

About 2, 516 projects were tracked between 2015 and 2017. Of the lot, 918 were not done, 395 ongoing and 214 cannot be located.

According to a document released by the spokesperson for the commission, Mrs. Rasheedat A. Okoduwa, the first phase will be conducted in 12 states.

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The states are: Kogi and Benue (North-Central); Adamawa and Bauchi (North-East); Sokoto and Kano (North-West); Imo and Enugu (South-East); Lagos and Osun (South-West); and Akwa Ibom and Edo (South-South).

Okoduwa said members of the Steering Committee of the investigation/ verification team were drawn from the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS), the Budget Office of the Federation, the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, “Premium Times”, the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), the Public and Private Development Centre, the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), the Community for Peace & Corrupt-free Society and BudgIT.

The document said: “The first phase of the exercise is to commence in 12 states across the six geo-political zones of the country from Tuesday. At least five projects have been identified for tracking in each state.

“Site visits in each state by the tracking team will involve ICPC and representatives of other members of the Steering Committee as well as a competent officer from the executing agency for each project.

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