N55m Fraud: Finance Minister Summons Bailey
From Kunle Aderinokun in Abuja
Finance Minister, Dr. (Mrs.) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has summoned Commissioner for Insurance, National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), Chief Oladipo Bailey and two other directors of the commission over allegation of inflation of contract price for the printing of Vehicle Insurance Sticker (VISER) by N55million leveled against them.
Bailey and the two other directors namely, Alhaji Usman Jega, Deputy Commissioner, Finance and Administration, and Laide Benson-Oshuntokun, the former Director, Finance and Planning will appear before Okonjo-Iweala today to explain their roles in the award of the contract.
Minister of State for Finance, Mrs. Nenadi Usman who at the weekend in Abuja confirmed that the three top officials of the commission have been summoned by the minister, said the contract was not approved by the ministry before Bailey awarded it.
Also, Okonjo-Iweala had earlier told newsmen that she was not aware of the contract award, and that the parastatals including NAICOM report to Usman.
The Minister who noted that such award without due process and approval was against the transparency and anti-corruption principle of the present administration said the issue was capable of embarrassing the government in its anti-corruption campaign.
The Ministerial Tenders Board detected the alleged fraud when it reviewed the contract awarded Rocstone International Limited, London by Bailey last year.
The board had discovered that the contract for the printing of the five million units of vehicle insurance stickers, VISER, was awarded at N50 per unit as against the N39 demanded by the contractor.
The fraud rocking the commission was exposed at a meeting between the board and Rocstone.
The contract which was broken down into batches of 400,000 units per batch, took off last year with the printing of the first batch while the second batch of 410,500 stickers was later given out.
Blowing the lid open, a member of the Tenders Board Committee alleged that Bailey inflated the unit price by N11 and recommended its cancellation which the NAICOM board upheld before its dissolution.
However, Bailey denied ever inflating the VISER contract price or calling for its cancellation. He added that the commission was still continuing with the printing of the next batch.
He stated that the board had approved N50 per sticker as contained in the contract paper and that everybody involved supported the decision when it was made.
He explained that Rocstone fixed the unit price at N50 to cater for inflation and probable rise in the exchange rate which according to him, affected the cost of printing of the stickers.
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