Recently, deep probing   by industry watchers as well as  intelligence and surveillance reports on   the contract execution for the re-branding of affiliated stations into NNPC RETAIL LTD, found the process to be  loaded with a lot of negligence with respect to issues of Due Process.   The system fell short of the acceptable standards   contained in the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) Act of 2007.And this shocking discovery is making stakeholders call for an end to the palpably fraudulent steps so far taken on the matter

The first batch of 117 affiliate stations contract for the re-branding of NNPC RETAIL LTD revealed that a contract sum of five hundred million Naira (N500, 000.00m) had already been disbursed for the contract. The contract selection and approval process was hurriedly executed without recourse to Due Process and compliance with the Public Procurement Act, before the award was given out.

 Here are the findings on the contract award:
 
The contract scoping process for the re-branding of affiliate stations was done by a single contract: IPAYA, alleged to be a crony of the Managing Director, NNPC Retail Ltd., Dr. Richard Ajiboye, without the knowledge of the Engineering Department of NNPC Retail Ltd.

Messrs: IPAYA was said to have carried out the job scoping for the contract of the re-branding works, which contradicts contract scoping and job assessment evaluation in the contract cloning, selection and approval process.
The contract sum value was five hundred million naira (N500m) for the first batch of re-branding works for 117 affiliate stations, yet no advertisement was made for publicity as envisaged by the Bureau of Public for Procurement, for transparency.

When the scoping was concluded by Messrs. IPAYA, five other contractors: Messrs: FRESH NETWORKS, AMRON, PESTER BRANDS, BOLD CONCEPT, & DAN FULANI were called in to have a share of the job, just to give it a semblance of credibility and create the impression that the contractors’ selection process was transparent. There was said to be no call for Tender, both technical and commercial, no bid analysis, and evaluation was  said to have been done to make room for ranking, while no contractor short listing was   done, no internal market survey either, to get an in-house estimate for the control of contract sum. Yet the contract was awarded.

The contractors were said not to have been subjected to competitive bidding, the expertise of the contractors not benchmarked against any approved standard prior to award according to the Audit Manager’s report in NNPC retail. There was said to have been no legal vetting of the contract process before contract was approved, hence a credibility issue was at play when the contract was awarded for execution.

Internal mechanism was said not to have been properly exhausted in the arrival at contract sum, as the contract was reported to have been given free hands to scope, compute price and package of the entire contract, without the involvement of the Engineering Unit of NNPC RETAIL LTD.

Our source states that Contract award was done by the MD NNPC RETAIL LTD “without the involvement of the Manager in charge of control of the job quality, hence the output from the completed jobs is nothing to write home about.”
 The other batch of the remaining affiliate station (about 350), we gathered will soon be given out for re-branding through the same process, which   lacks transparency.
 
 The Petitioners against the scam are therefore requesting that:
    Top management should probe the contract award for the re-branding of the first batch of 117 affiliate stations to ascertain if all contract selection and processing requirement were met, asking:
    “Why was the scoping of a contract for the re-branding of 117 affiliate station  issued to a proposed contractor, Messr: IPAYA who was a crony of the MD, NNPC Retail, Dr. Richard Ajiboye, a practice which was against the Bureau of Public Procurement Act 2007?”
   

“How was the contract sum arrived at when there was no proper internal control mechanism in place from the Engineering Unit of NNPC Retail Ltd., who approved the sum for the contract value?”
   

“Why was Audit Department of NNPC Retail Ltd. not informed of the contract selection process leading to award, if it met Due Process and Bureau of Public Procurement?,  as the Audit Manager of NNPC Retail Ltd. should be able to explain?”   

“Why was the contract not advertised in the national dailies to give it much publicity for competitive bidding to be promoted and for transparency?”
    “If a contract sum of five hundred million naira did not go under the scrutiny of the Legal Department of NNPC, how and why was it awarded? Who approved the budget and at what forum?”
   

Aggrieved stakeholders are demanding that The Bureau of Public Procurement should be invited to immediately investigate and determine if the re-branding contract selection and approval process met the expected standard as contained in the BPP Act of 200, and that top Management of NNPC should set up an investigative team of engineers in conjunction with NNPC to carry out a confirmation exercise. 
 

 Furthermore, the following have been revealed:

1.             That Alhaji Abba Bukar had never worked in any Depot loading facilicity as a Depot Representative, so why should MD NNPC Retail Ltd. prefer him for the herculean task of loading over 400 affiliate stations across the network without any prior experience?

2.    That the decision to send him to Apapa Private Loading Depot was taken right in the retreat venue held 6th February, 2010, when it was very clear that he had not worked in any depot or at any loading operations. This decision was the input from his MD NNPC Retail Ltd. mentor, Alhaji Aminu Baba-Kusa who was the Group Executive Director (GED) Commercial & Investment.

3.     That in the NNPC Retail Ltd. organogramme from the Human Resources Department, there is no job title as ‘Co-coordinator, Depot Operations,’ which was the letter issued to Alhaji Abba Bukar, when he was posted to head the loading operations at the Apapa private Depot  - why was this so?
4.     That the MD NNPC Retail Ltd., Dr. Richard Ajiboye, categorically, informed the Regional Manager who was the in charge of Lagos operations (Mr. Febohe) not to interfere in the Private Depot Operations at Apapa, which was supposed to be under his (Ajiboye’s) control and supervision. This explains, from findings of our sources, why the title Coordinator Loading Operations was cleverly used in the letter given to   letter issued to Alhaji Abba Bukar, beside the significant fact that Human Resources Department was not copied.

5.     That at the request of Alhaji Abba Bukar, he single handedly employed ten (10) support staff ers to assist in the loading operations, with the approval of  MD.NNPC RETAIL LTD, who approved the purchase of three (3) motor cycles for  Abba Bukar as logistics for the operations,  against the corporate policy of NNPC.

6.    That   Abba Bukar had never operated a computer prior to his posting to Apapa loading operations, hence he had no applicable knowledge of the use of Microsoft suites in the preparation of report of loading from the Depot facility, so why should a computer operations-deficient personnel be asked to handle such an onerous task of computing loading operations to about 400 affiliate stations in the NNPC RETAIL network if there was no intention to defraud the NNPC of  substantial sums of money?
 
7.     That for the period he functioned as the Regional Manager Western Operations, Mr. Febohe was prevented from overseeing the activities of the loading operations at the Apapa loading depot, and that Dr. Richard Ajiboye even threatened to issue him a query if he finds that he (Febohe) should go to Apapa to supervise the operations, since Abba Bukar was supposed to report to him. Instead, the MD asked him (Abba Bukar) to report to him (MD) directly so that there will be no leakage in the strategic alliance between the MD and Bukar over the sharing of proceeds from products loaded without proper documentation.
 
8.     That there is also strong evidence confirming that MD NNPC RETAIL LTD. intermittently visited Lagos (Apapa loading depot) without the knowledge of the Regional Manager, Mr. Febohe and that on each occasion, Bukar would be seen communicating with the MD at isolated locations from the scene of the support staff and the dominant issue discussed was money transfer from their deals.
 
9.    That  the MD NNPC RETAIL LTD has successfully wrongly removed those who are experienced in tracking of the operations from position and has surrounded himself with mediocre personnel  who do not understand the detailed operations of depot operations and product distribution and tracking from depot to stations, hence the collapse of the system.
 
10.   That Abba Bukar from intelligence gathered by our source collects N30, 000: 00 from truck owners before berthing and loading. In some cases, the truck numbers and destinations are not entered into the loading manifest and as such the details would not be captured when the loading invoice is to be reconciled with PPMC – a   deliberate act and incompetence on the part of Bukar). The big question, our sources claim, is “why would he be asked to take up such assignment”?

 
11.  That the accord between  Abba Bukar and the MD NNPC RETAIL LTD started when   Bukar  took the MD to meet  Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in Abeokuta as well as the governor of Ogun state ,  Otunba Gbenga Daniel, so that he would be retained in Retail as the MD in spite of accusations of incompetence, and
 
12. That “why was it that all 500  missing loaded trucks are  only from the Apapa private Loading Depot Operations under the Coordination  of Abba Bukar, given that there is no report of missing trucks from Warri, Benin, Kaduna or Mosimi depots?” This trend, our sources argue, “points to a business collaboration between Alhaji Abba Bukar and the MD NNPC RETAIL LTD.
 
 Our sources and stakeholders in the sector are demanding that the following steps be taken:
 a.) That NNPC top management make a detailed inquiry to unearth the root cause of the missing loaded trucks all from same source (Apapa Private Depot loading operation);

b.)  That top management should question the MD NNPC RETAIL LTD, Dr. Richard Ajiboye on how he got that nomenclature, Coordinator Private Depot Loading, Apapa, absent from the   organogram?

c.) That   Abba Bukar had no depot loading experience before he was sent o handle such an onerous task as loading products to over 400 stations at the expense of the interest of NNPC, so why was he sent even when such fact was known to the MD?

 d.) They ask, “Where in the condition of service of NNPC is it stated that motor-cycle would be bought for logistic operations in a loading depot?

 e.) Why did the MD, NNPC RETAIL LTD restrain    Febohe, the Regional Manager Western Operations from overseeing the activities of Abba Bukar at the loading operations at Apapa when it was under his domain if there were no collaboration between him and Bukar to defraud the corporation? They suggest that Mr. Febohe could be contacted for more details on: 080052012592/08033166405/08077091220

f.) They argue that Depot Representatives such as Mr. Tari Omonibo, Mr. Ibrahim Yinusa who had experience in depot operations were not sent to cover the operations at Apapa by the MD, rather it was Abba Bukar, who was asked to leave Abeokuta mega station from the venue of a retreat at NNPC Towers 6th February, 2010 to take up the assignment that he had no knowledge about:  why?

g.) That Abba Bukar’s persistent complaints to the MD, NNPC RETAIL LTD, of trespass on his operations at Apapa by the Regional Manager Western Operations, Mr. Febohe, resulted in the redeployment to Yenegoa mega station of Febohe, so that   Bukar could have a free hand.

h.) That when it was clear that Bukar lacked the experience to handle a task such as the one at Apapa loading depot, Mr. Yinusa Ibrahim was asked to temporarily stabilize the operations to clean up the mess, but he bluntly told the MD that he “did not need to work with any staff, that he was in charge and requested that Ibrahim Yinusa should be called back, and the MD granted the request - why?”
 
i) That Bukar is still getting full pay in-lieu of hotel accommodation at the current category (A) rate of N19, 000.00/night,  while other colleagues deployed to the mega stations are paid 1/3 of their monthly in-lieu of accommodation benefits. His contemporaries ten (10) senior career  officers) who were redeployed to Abuja to cover duties at the Head Office since February 2010 till date have not been paid any in-lieu of hotel accommodation benefits, our sources confirmed and ask: “why the double standard?  Is it not the same condition of service NNPC operates?”
 
j.) Our sources observe that a support staff, Mr. Matthias Peter who had detailed information computed from the system on the missing loaded trucks and the identified causes of the irregularities that may have resulted in such operations, was openly rebuked by the MD, NNPC RETAIL LTD and threatened with dismissal, and that after much appeal, he (Peter) was redeployed to the Audit section of Retail. He has been a very useful asset to the Manager Audit in information computing about the missing loaded truck, our sources say and recommend that top management should invite him for more details.
 
k.) They recall that when Alhaji Ahmed Gambo was the Manager Operations in charge of tracking and distribution of loaded products to the various stations,  no single truck that  got missing; so they ask: “why did the MD Retail remove   Ahmed Gambo from the tracking and distribution of loaded products to stations? Finally, they query,
 
l.) Why did Alhaji Abba Bukar single-handedly undertake the renovation of the house of the father of MD, NNPC RETAIL LTD at Abeokuta at a contract sum above N20m if there was no collaboration between him and the MD? 
  
 The other questions on the lips of stakeholders and our sources are : how a staff who could not account for the whereabouts of 500 loaded missing trucks belonging to his employer is still being allowed to remain in office by the MD, NNPC RETAIL LTD without any query, no panel set up for inquiry and no investigation is being done to get the truth about his activities?

 
They believe that the truth will be established if all these options are fully explored in detail. As far as they are concerned, the dismissal of the support staff at Apapa Private Loading Depot by the MD was intended to give a false impression to top management that they were responsible for the crime. This, they argue, “is not correct; there is collaboration; the MD should be asked to step aside for proper investigation and top management should declare a state of emergency in NNPC RETAIL LTD now, to sanitize the system so that the labour expended in setting up the retail arm of NNPC should not be in vain.

Comments:

JERRY :The letters of your stories are too small and difficult to read on blackberry and other hand held devices. I think you need to redesign your web page to address this.You can take cue from African Examiner online. Tanx

Mohammed Bougei Attah:This is an exccellent piece, Jim. I congratulate you for this bold step and assure you that as procurement priofessionals, we will look into this saga further