NASS orders maritime academy to stop awarding contracts

The House of Representatives Committee on Maritime Safety, Education and Administration Chaired by Hon. Mohammed Umaru Bago has ordered the management, Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN) Oron in Akwa Ibom to stop further awards of contracts.

The committee members, who were on their second visit to the academy within the year, were not happy at the high number of uncompleted projects and sundry debts owed to contractors.

They however ordered the Acting Rector to pay contractors their monies on the uncompleted projects.

During the facility tour of projects sites by the committee, its Chairman, Bago ordered the school management not to award any new contracts but to pay the on-going ones attributing the halt of contract to the current economy recession.

He said: ‘’Do not award any new contracts, do not differentiate between NIMASA money or Federal Government funded projects, pay contractors.”

“There is recession and people have collected money from the bank, pay them and I told the minister, this is malicious, how can somebody go to the bank, collected money and you people are tying down this money.”

“If you don’t pay them by next year, I will make sure you have zero allocation,” he warned.

At the abandoned survival pool site, which has been on for over three decades now; the committee mandated the academy to complete the project as it can generate revenue to the school; while cutting down expenses on cadets training outside.

He praised the acting rector for improving on the academy’ fortunes from their last visit, saying that he should make his tenure to count.