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FRC wants payment to govt consultants stopped

Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) has urged the Federal Government to review and put a stop to the payment of capital projects through consultants. Acting Chairman of FRC, Barr. Victor Muruako, who made this known during the capacity training for management and staff of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) on Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007, yesterday in Abuja, pushed for direct payment of monitoring and evaluation funds to the contractors.

He explained that first hand experiences from the field had revealed that most consultants seemed to be more interested in protecting the consultancy fee rather than focus on their actual duty of supervision, monitoring and protecting the interest of government that was paying for the contract. He said: A lot has been revealed through our capital project verification exercises concerning all sorts of diversions, including compromise by government consultants to capital projects. We, therefore, call on government to reconsider payment of monitoring and evaluation funds to contractors. This has unfortunately given room for compromise and should be checked henceforth.

“A situation whereby we find ourselves being in opposing sides with government consultants on clear issues, most times than often they speak for the contractors who will want to interrogate and find out performance and push him to enable citizens get value for money. “A situation whereby the consultants are paid from government coffers, but routed through the contractors seems to be a contradiction on what their job should be. We have found that as a key issue, we need to take a second look, that arrangement needs to be reviewed.”

Muruako, who further said there were 122 scheduled agencies under the scheduled Fiscal Responsibility Act, however, hinted that although the commission was recommending addition of more agencies to the schedule, some may be removed considering their operations and the welfare of the citizenry. Managing Director of NRC, Engr. Fidet Okhiria, said the training would enhance capability of the corporation to effectively engage its budget processes, operate surplus computation, monitor its revenue sources as it undertakes the era of railway modernization in the country.

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