The Attorney General of Nigeria and Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Justice, Mrs. Beatrice Jedy-Agba, said the newly launched Federal Complex Contracts Processing and Administration (FCAS) is designed to improve operational efficiency and reduce financial risk.
The Permanent Secretary stated this at the Handbook 2023 and engagement workshop with legal advisors and key stakeholders held in Abuja on Tuesday.
Speaking at the workshop themed “Strengthening Contract Management and Compliance in Federal Governance”, Jedy-Agba noted the development challenges and lack of clarity arising from contracts that the government entered into despite having the public procurement law and the fiscal responsibility law, among others.
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While frowning at the ways and manners in which laws are being undermined, he noted that Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) are governed by law.
She said: “You can't just do whatever you want. “We expect it to have capacity, which should be reflected in the quality of the deal it is striking.”
Perm-Sec added that legal advisors must do everything possible to avoid failed contracts and also mitigate the effect, adding that “collaboration is key to ensuring the effective implementation of the projects we deliver on behalf of the government.”
Also speaking, the Deputy Director of the ministry, Augustine Uchechukwu Kalu, noted that the new measure was aimed at guiding the ministry and various departments on how to navigate the FCAS platform and obtain results.
According to him, one of his key objectives is to ensure that unnecessary projects are not undertaken.
On the implementation plans, Kalu said that around 40 MDAs have been disaggregated, adding that the government is interested in the process, assuring that it will not discard it but will take it to a logical conclusion.
“We will look at feasibility studies, public-private partnership agreements, financing agreements and due diligence both at home and abroad so that projects are not abandoned,” Kalu said.
The Ministry's Chief Consultant on FCAS, Dr. Mark Osa Igiehon, expressed the government's readiness to take action through the Ministry of Justice to avoid what happened in the P&ID contract case.
In his words, with the new plan the government will be able to conclude projects and contracts in a sophisticated manner using specialists, not only to minimize the possibility of project failure, but also to be able to process and register contracts in the most appropriate way.
“The government is now ready to take action on such high-level, high-value, high-risk projects so that in the future we have fewer failed contracts and do not have to pay huge sums of money for failed contracts,” Igiehon said.
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