The House of Representatives Committee on Environment has questioned the Ecological Fund Office (EFO) over its non-adherence to due process in awarding N11.5 billion contracts in the South-Eastern parts of the country.
Members of the committee made this known during? an interactive meeting with the new permanent secretary of the Ecological Fund Office, Dr. MacJohn Nwaobiala,? at the National Assembly over the weekend.
But the committee has given? a two-week ultimatum to the permanent secretary to submit a detailed list of all ongoing contracts, their locations, amounts, the names of the contractors as well as the contractual agreements.
The committee also said it discovered that the utilisation of the funds meant for the contract had been largely unmonitored, particularly in the states and at local government levels.
The contracts in question were awarded by the EFO as part of the Federal Government’s emergency intervention fund aimed at addressing ecological challenges of gully erosion and flood in the South-East in 2010; under the watch of the former permanent secretary, Mrs. Ibukun Odusote.
The Ecological Fund is an emergency intervention fund that is made up of 3 per cent of the total revenue accrued to the Federal Government totalling about N4 billion monthly.