A Nigerian agency, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) in a shocking example of corruption, contract inflation, and racketeering has spent N174,98 million on training manuals.
NPHCDA saddled with the responsibility of providing support for the implementation of Primary Health Care across Nigeria, claims to have spent the sum of N174,986,640.00 on training manual in northern Nigeria. An amount that has since been published on govspend.ng, a BudgiT platform that shows government spending on federal projects.
The agency says the manuals which are for COVID-19 training were distributed to its offices in northern Nigeria.
Under the deal that was struck together with the Federal Ministry of Health, NPHCDA awarded the contract to Marvelous Mike Press Limited. A company registered on July 26, 2006.
This is even as a senior staff of the agency who did not want his identity disclosed, accused Mr. Faisal Shuaib, the NPHCDA Executive Director of using the COVID-19 pandemic to enrich himself and his cronies.
“I can tell you if that contract was carried out, less than 20% of that money was spent and the rest diverted to personal pockets, go and investigate the company that got that contract, Shuaib has an interest,” the official told MAWA.
Another staff of the agency, who spoke to the MAWA Foundation, said there were no procurement processes followed before the contract was awarded. He pointed out that NPHCDA tagged the project emergency while officials handpicked a company, they had an interest in and used it to move the money.
Four printers in Abuja who spoke to MAWA Foundation said spending such a huge amount on training manuals alone is unimaginable.
MAWA Foundation could not immediately reach out to NPHCDA for an explanation.