A civil society group, Paradigm Leadership Support Initiative, has called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission to investigate the alleged unexecuted projects in federal universities.

The group made the call in Abuja on Friday while examining the 2016 Auditor General of the Federation report indicting federal universities, including the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Imo State.
The PLSI asked the anti-graft agencies to “investigate the transactions, recover the sums and refund this to the Federal Government treasury.”

The group’s Executive Director, Olusegun Elemo, said, “The sum of N44,646,000 has not been accounted for in a contract for the supply and installation of lecture seats for the School of Engineering and Engineering Technology lot 2B at FUTO. A review of the 2016 Audit Report of the Federation showed how the contract which was awarded to a company at N45,171,000 with completion period of six weeks was not executed.

“Also, a contract for the supply and installation of 2,000 three-in-one classroom desks for the Parents Management Forum Centre in FUTO was discovered not to have been executed. An analysis of the 2016 audit report revealed that the contractor was fully paid the sum of N23.6m based on store receipt vouchers. Also, physical audit inspection to the centre where the seats were allegedly installed revealed that the centre, a dilapidated and decrepit arena with broken chairs and benches used over a decade ago had no new seats installed.