Nigeria is losing more than N2bn monthly as a result of prolonged delay in the implementation of the Lottery Platform As A Service (LPAAS) Project by the National Lottery Regulatory Commission (NLRC), Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of the Systems Numeric Nigeria Ltd, Athan Achonu said on Tuesday.
Achonu was speaking at a public hearing held at the instance of the House Committee on Public Petitions over allegations of irregularities against the Lottery Commission and the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPP) in the lottery platform contract bid.
SNL, in its petition dated 25th February 2013, had accused Lottery Commission and BPP of violating due process in contract bidding, as contained in the Act establishing the regulatory agencies.
Achonu argued that SNL provided full financial bid including hardware, software, cost of deployment, training, etc, while E-Game allegedly submitted an incomplete financial bid that failed to capture the total deployment cost for the project.
The SNL boss also noted that his rival bidder failed to submit the performance bond as required, whereas he provided performance bond of N500m. He lamented that the money that was sourced from a bank facility was still accumulating interest to the detriment of his company.
He further accused the LPAAS Consultant of fraudulently standing in for E-Game in interpreting and calculating their financial bid, listing observers from the Office of the SGF, the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission, ICRC as witnesses to the alleged violation.
“With the foregoing, we expected that in compliance with all international best practices for bids of this nature, our company would have been immediately awarded the contract,” Achonu said.
“But instead, the SGF directed the Lottery Commission, BPP and the ICRC to further review the bid, which unnecessarily gives E-Game further opportunity in the LPAAS bid, when in fact, it should have been disqualified and the contract awarded to us forthwith.”
Responding, Chairman of the House Committee on Public Petitions, Hon. Uzor Azubike summoned Emeka Eze, the BPP director-general to appear before the committee on 10th April 2013 when it would reconvene to hear the matter again or risk being arrested.
The BPP boss had earlier written to the committee, alleging inconclusiveness of the bidding processes and warning against disclosure of information pertaining to the bid by any party, as provided for in the BPP Act.
