Akwa Ibom governor's committee could get power to award billion-naira contracts without bidding

When Governor Umo Eno reconstituted Akwa Ibom's Direct Labour Committee in March 2024 and named himself chairman, few anticipated the scale of projects that would come under its watch. Today, the committee oversees some of the state's most expensive public projects and stands to gain new powers that could evade accountability under a proposed procurement law.

The committee took charge of the construction of model primary healthcare centres spread across local government areas. It oversaw the construction of model schools and the administration's widely publicised ARISE Compassionate Homes. Now, it's supervising the rehabilitation of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly Complex.

Yet one question lingered in the background: under what law was the committee awarding or supervising contracts that ordinarily fall within the mandate of ministries and agencies governed by the state's procurement law?

Now, a bill before the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly appears set to answer that question.

A PREMIUM TIMES review of the proposed Akwa Ibom State Public Procurement Regulatory Agency (Establishment) Bill shows that the legislation would create a legal framework for the Direct Labour Committee and grant it powers to procure goods, works and services without passing through what the bill describes as “stringent procurement tendering process.”

The provision sits at the centre of a proposed law that has moved through the House with unusual speed.

Introduced alongside 11 other executive bills on 2 June, it passed its first reading the same day. By 9 June, it had scaled its second reading and was sent to the House Committee on Appropriation and Finance. A public hearing was held on 15 June to gather input on the bill.

But behind the routine legislative process is a proposal that could reshape how billions of naira in public contracts are awarded in Akwa Ibom.

At first glance, the bill looks familiar as large sections mirror the existing Akwa Ibom State Public Procurement Law, Cap 122, Laws of Akwa Ibom State, 2022, which the new legislation seeks to repeal.

The content, architecture, and regulatory structures remain the same, except that the regulatory authority is proposed to be called an agency rather than the bureau currently in place. The key change is the formal introduction of the Direct Labour Committee.

Under Section 31, the governor would chair the committee. Other members include the Secretary to the State Government, the Commissioner for Finance, the Accountant-General, a Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Special Duties, or a representative of the Ministry of Special Duties, members of the state's Project Monitoring and Evaluation Team, and the Secretary of the Committee.

The most consequential provision appears in Section 31(3). It authorises the committee to engage resource persons and service providers for the procurement of goods, works, and services categorised as “special intervention” projects, without having to undergo the stringent procurement procedures required elsewhere under the law.

The phrase appears only once in the bill, and its meaning is unexplained. The legislation contains no definition of what qualifies as a special intervention project. It sets no limits on the type of projects that can be classified under the category and establishes no monetary ceiling.

Instead, the bill leaves the determination of spending thresholds to procurement circulars that would be issued later by a regulatory agency whose leadership would be appointed by the governor.

The questions raised by the proposed legislation prompted PREMIUM TIMES to seek clarifications from the Akwa Ibom State Government.

In separate enquiries sent to the Commissioner for Information, Aniekan Umanah, and the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Uko Udom, PREMIUM TIMES asked why the government considered it necessary to create a procurement pathway exempt from stringent tendering procedures when the state's existing procurement law already provides mechanisms for emergency and restricted procurement under specified conditions.

The newspaper also sought explanations for the bill's failure to define what constitutes a “special intervention” project, despite making such projects eligible for procurement outside conventional bidding processes.

Officials were further asked to explain the legal authority under which the Direct Labour Committee had been undertaking procurement-related functions on major projects before the introduction of the proposed legislation.

PREMIUM TIMES also requested clarification on why the bill leaves the committee's procurement spending thresholds to future circulars rather than specifying them in law, as well as the safeguards that would prevent abuse of the proposed exemptions.

The Attorney-General, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, was specifically asked how the proposed law ensures adequate checks and balances, given that the governor would chair the committee that awards the contracts.

At the time of publication, the state government hadn't responded to the enquiries.