by ADEDOKUN THEOPHILUS
Although Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency, the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) spent N563 million on the purchase of computer systems and photocopying machines in the last five years, it still budgeted the sum of N300 million for similar expenditures in 2025.
Southern Herald found out that this huge amount was released for various purchases between 2020 and 2024,
According to data gathered by Southern Herald from GovSpend, a platform that makes government procurement data available to citizens in accordance with principles of transparency and accountability, N563 million was released to the Commission between 2020 and 2024. Southern Herald found that eight different private companies received the released N563 million in thirteen instalments.
The corporate entities, which received the monies, were supposed to either maintain the anti-graft agency’s equipment or buy new ones. The equipment procured includes photocopying machines and computer systems. Data mined by this medium further shows that these companies were paid between Wednesday, November 18, 2020, and Tuesday, April 2, 2024.
However, Southern Herald found that some of the payments made were for an unspecified number of photocopying machines and computer systems. The quantitative and qualitative descriptions of the gadgets purchased were noticed to be vague as there were no sufficiently clear details about the quality and quantities of the items. Furthermore, the anti-corruption agency has proposed another N300 million for the procurement of similar gadgets in its 2025 budget. Supplies or expenditures made for items or services not explicitly mentioned in the budget violate Section 16 of the 2007 Public Procurement Act.
The act explicitly states that:
“in a manner which is transparent, timely, equitable for ensuring accountability and conformity with this Act and regulations deriving therefrom; (e) with the aim of achieving value for money and fitness for purpose ; (f ) in a manner which promotes competition, economy and efficiency; and (g) in accordance with the procedures and timeline laid down in this Act and as may be specified by the Bureau from time to time.”
Subsequently, Southern Herald found that some of the procurements within the period under review violated the provisions of the Public Procurement Act, which is clear about the non-engagement of unregistered business entities. We found that two of the contractors that were paid to procure some of these gadgets were not duly registered at the time they were awarded the contracts.
Southern Herald searched the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) database and discovered that Patriots Arsenal Limited, one of the companies awarded contracts by the EFCC, was registered on Friday, May 31, 2021.
However, the EFCC awarded a contract to the company and paid it three clear months before it was duly registered.
This Newspaper’s findings indicated the company, Patriots Arsenal Limited, was paid N14,4010,681 on Monday, 22 February 2021, for the supply of different office items that were not specified. This action was found to be an infraction of the extant laws, particularly Section 16 Subsection 6 of the Public Procurement Act (2007). This part of the law makes it abundantly clear that it is illegal for unregistered companies to participate in any public procurement process. It also prohibits the award of contracts to such unregistered companies by government agencies.
We discovered that another firm, IT Touch Limited, which was registered on Friday, February 24, 2021, was paid for a contract on Tuesday, March 19, 2021. This is barely a month after its registration. Its registration number is RC-1762804. Although there is no legal regulation that explicitly bars awarding contracts to new companies, requirements like three years’ tax clearance certificates, National Pension Commission (PENCOM) and Industrial Training Fund (ITF) registration appear to have been waived without any justification in the case of the companies.
This is according to subsection 8b of the Public Procurement Act: “a supplier, contractor or consultant during the last three years prior to the commencement of the procurement proceedings in issue, failed to perform or to provide due care in performance of any public procurement.”
Moreover, section 31 (5) of the Companies Income Tax Act (CITA) states that a firm cannot be given a government contract unless it has a valid tax clearance certificate for the previous three years.
Southern Herald scrutinised all the releases by the anti-graft agency to know the contractors that were paid and the amount every contractor got.
WE found that about N74,695,925 was handed to the Commission in 2020 as payment for 190 units of computers.
The payment was made to two companies: Digital Communications Kosult Nigeria Limited and Bravo & Yellow Limited. The former received the sum of N34,085,025 (thirty-four million eighty-five thousand and nine hundred and twenty-five Naira), while the latter company received N40,608,000.
Digital Communications Kosult Nigeria Limited was expected to supply 100 units of Dell Optiplex 3080 computers, and Bravo & Yellow Limited was paid to supply 90 units of computers to the anti-graft agency.
In another transaction, the EFCC paid N250,293,463 to three contractors in four tranches between Monday, February 22, 2021, and Tuesday, November 30, 2021. Patriots Arsenal Limited, IT Touch Limited, and Jagmai Projects and Services Limited were the companies paid to deliver the goods.
Patriots Arsenal Limited was paid N14,4010,681 on Monday, 22 February 2021, for the supply of Gubabi fireproof filing cabinet, sharp industrial photocopier, laserjet printer, Dell Optiplex desktop & stamp machine.
On the 9th of the following month, IT Touch Limited was paid N170,200,068 to supply an unspecified number of desktop computers to the commission.
In July of the same year, IT Touch Limited was paid another N29,750,00 for an additional supply of desktop computers.
The final payment was made in 2021 to Jagmai Projects and Services Limited on Tuesday, 21 November.
It was for the renewal of U-Fed licenses, cloud analyzers and analytics of desktops for the commission. Analytics desktop is used to automate the time-intensive analytical tasks to deliver the deepest, most accurate insights possible.
A total amount of N32,632,000 was made to purchase and renew maintenance of photocopiers in 2022, Southern Herald noted.
Aptron Consults Limited received the payments for the supply of Photocopiers and printers and the renewal of their maintenance.
It was paid N15,061,000 on Monday 7, February for the annual renewal of the photocopiers’ maintenance, which lasted between November 2022 and November 2023.
That is not all, Southern Herald found that Aptron Consults Limited received N17,571,000 for the supply of photocopiers and printers on Tuesday 20, December. These supplies were not specified. A study by a group of three London-based scholars on Nigeria’s E-transparency and government budgetary corruption pointed out vaguely specified budgeted projects as one of the red flags of Nigeria’s procurement process.
They suggested that social media-based budget monitoring ICT can identify instances in which projects have vague budgets, inflation, recurrence and budget fraud.
Although 2021 was the year in which the commission spent the most money on computers and photocopiers, 2023 was the second-highest year, with over 136 million naira spent mostly on printer and photocopier maintenance and purchases.
For purchases and repairs, two companies were paid in four instalments.
While Panasharp Technologies Limited smiled at a fat bank account and was paid a one-time amount of N76,469,000 for the supply of photocopying machines in early March of that year, Aptron Consults Limited got its N15,429,000 for repairing and maintaining photocopiers at the EFCC head office.
Subsequently, Aptron Consults Limited received another sum of N13,772,000, payment for the maintenance of photocopiers at various EFCC offices from December 2020 to November 2021.
However, neither the EFCC offices nor the number of photocopiers maintained by this company was specified. This is another violation of the Public Procurement Act.
It got a final sum of N30,470,000 for the supply of photocopier consumables for Xerox, Panasonic, Sharp, Rocoh & Gestetner.
To cut the long narration short, the commission paid Mubalco World-Wide Services Limited to supply 32 units of various photocopy machine models to its headquarters in 2024. An investigation of all the payments made by the EFCC showed that supplies were vague and unclear in quality and quantities.
Budgit unravelled that 732.5 billion worth of allocation projects were marked vague in the 2024 budget.
Reacting to the findings, the Country Director of BudglT, Gabriel Okeowo, expressed worries over the development. He mentioned that this revelation implies that the monitoring, evaluation, and sustainability of these projects would be undermined.
Deep-Dive on The Companies
Southern Herald noted that eight businesses were paid for either the services or the supplies of printers, photocopiers and computers.
These companies are Digital Communications Kosult Nigeria Limited; Bravo & Yellow Limited; Patriots Arsenal Limited; IT Touch Limited; Jagmai Projects and Services Limited; Aptron Consults Limited; Panasharp Technologies Limited; and Mubalco World-Wide Services Limited.
Multiple research studies were conducted on the companies to verify the status of the businesses and companies on the Corporate Affairs Commission and other open information platforms.
Southern Herald found that Digital Communications Kosult Nigeria Limited, a company that was paid thirty-four million eighty-five thousand and nine hundred and twenty-five naira in 2020, was neither active nor inactive on the CAC public search. A subsequent search of the company using B2BHint showed that it has never been registered on CAC.
Further search revealed that it was registered in July 1997, but its current status is unknown, and its Registration Number is 316009.
Similarly, Bravo & Yellow Limited is another company that was registered in 2016. Relevant information on its present status was not available on CAC. Findings by Southern Herald, however, showed that its registration number is 1309151.
Although the present status of Jagmai Projects and Services Limited is unknown, it was registered in 2016 with RC 1324002 as its registration number, Southern Herald noted.
With registration number RC 1115161, Aptron Consults Limited was registered in May 2013, and Panasharp Technologies Limited with RC 716169 as its registration number in November 2007.
Southern Herald found that Mubalco World-Wide Services Limited was registered in December 2014 with registration number RC 1233891.
Investigation using CAC did not show the details of the companies. However, an alternative platform, B2B Hint, revealed that Patriots Arsenal Limited, Jagmai Projects and Services Limited, Digital Communications Kosult Nigeria Limited, and IT Touch Limited were marked active in September 2024.
There is more: Bravo & Yellow Limited, Aptron Consults Limited, Panasharp Technologies Limited and Mubalco World-Wide Services Limited were presently labelled inactive. This means that the companies that failed to file their annual returns to the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). The Companies and Allied Matters Act 2020 (CAMA) explained that these companies are illegible to bid for public contracts, as most public procurement processes require proof of up-to-date annual returns as a prerequisite for qualification.
Putting in Context: How Many Computer Gadgets Can Be Bought With 300 Million Naira
The line items proposed by the Economic and Financial Commission related to photocopying machines and computer hardware are
- The purchase of hp & Deskjet coloured, black & white printers for N25,000,000;
- The purchase of Sharp, Panasonic, Ricoh & Rank Xerox photocopying machines for new zonal offices for N100,000,000;
- The purchase of HP & industrial scanners for new zonal offices for N25,000,000 and
- Lastly, the purchase of Dell & HP Desktop computers & laptops for new zonal office for N150,000,000.
Southern Herald put in context the proposed budget with the reality of Nigeria’s economy despite its vagueness, lack of quantities, and absence of quality and proper description.
Navigation on Jumia Marketplace, a platform that allows businesses to sell products and access marketing and promotions to know the price of the specification and the number of items that can be bought.
The first line item of the EFCC proposed budget is twenty-five million naira. It is for the purchase of HP & Deskjet coloured, black & white printers.
Findings on the online marketplace showed that the HP DeskJet 2720e All-in-One HP+ Enabled Wireless Colour costs N1,335,000. Southern Herald used the most expensive HP DeskJet on the e-commerce store for our calculation. This means that at least 18 Deskjet systems can be purchased with the proposed budget of N25,000,000.00.
Another line item shows the purchase of Sharp, Panasonic, Ricoh & Rank Xerox photocopying machines for new zonal offices for N100,000,000. The Commission listed four historical manufacturing business machines.
This made their specification ambiguous.
However, Southern Herald went with the most expensive photocopier, which was seen on Jumia. The model of the gadget used for our calculation is Sharp BP-30M31 Multifunctional Printer, which cost N 5,060,000. Our estimation showed that nineteen of these machines are ideal for any busy workgroup that needs high performance, high-quality output and versatility and can be bought within the proposed budgets.
This can evenly be allocated across all the fifteen zonal commands of the anti-graft agency.
Beyond that, the red flag on the hardware computer gadgets within the proposed budget for the 2025 fiscal year is the purchase of HP & industrial scanners for the commission’s new zonal offices for N25,000,000.
Most of the HP scanners available on Jumia are Scanjet. These are standard office-grade scanners designed for basic document scanning at home or in a small office. Industrial-performance scanners, as described, are built for heavy-duty use in demanding environments like warehouses or manufacturing facilities. They often have features like faster scanning speeds, larger document handling capabilities, and enhanced durability to handle rough conditions.
Although the cost of industrial scanners varies, with an average cost of N3,975,000, the HP LaserJet Enterprise MFP M528z 1PV67A is designed for businesses that demand high-speed performance.
Using the price of the HP LaserJet Enterprise MFP M528z 1PV67A as our expectation for the purchase of an industrial scanner, Southern Herald revealed that the EFCC would be able to afford six scanners for its zonal offices.
Finally, the purchase of the Lastly the purchase of Dell & HP Desktop computers & laptops for the new zonal office is proposed at the rate of N150,000,000.
With no specification on the type and model of system the commission intended to purchase, a modern and durable desktop computer was selected in the e-commerce website for our estimation.
The DELL OptiPlex 7410 ALL-IN-ONE Core™ I7-13700 256GB SSD 16GB 23.8″ (1920×1080) WIN11 Pro Keyboard Mouse with a high-performance processing system was selected. It cost N650,000.00. This shows that 230 sets of this desktop computer can be bought across its new zonal offices.
The Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) said that the expansion and enlargement of its work necessitate the regular procurement of computer systems and photocopying machines. The spokesperson of the Commission, Dele Oyewale, stressed that the anti graft agency, being a very large institution, needs to procure these items regularly.
“The EFCC is a very large institution, working tools like computers, and computer accessories can not be expected to be stagnant. Now, between 2020 and 2024, some computer items were bought. We have done a series of recruitment after that.
“Three new zonal directorates are being planted and they are going to take up this year. The staff are going to be deployed there would need computers,” Oyewale said, adding that the operation dynamic of the institution also necessitates it.
Reacting to Southern Herald’s findings on the paid companies, He pointed out that the EFCC takes its procurement procedures seriously.
“I want to be very sure about your facts. It is not enough to say that you got your information from a source. Where do you get your facts? I want to be sure about your facts, and some facts cannot be substantiated.
“As a law enforcement and anti-corruption agency, the EFCC is serious about the procurement processes, and we always make sure that every I is dotted and T is crossed before we allow any company to procure any item.
“My response is that no such thing happened and the commission is very transparent and credible in its procurement processes and that is my response,” he added.
