By Chidi Nkwopara

OWERRI—The managements of Federal Medical Centre and the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, both in Owerri, have been accused of failing to submit details of their Medium Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, for 2010 to 2012, as required by the Act establishing the Fiscal Responsibility Commission, FRC.

FRC Chairman, Chief Victor Muruako, stated this when he undertook a verification visit to the two establishments to ascertain the level of completion of some Federal Government capital projects.
He was also interested in identifying the projects either on-going, uncompleted or abandoned by the contractors executing them.

Muruako also accused the managements of the two establishments of keeping the commission in the dark, in respect of details of projects executed by them, as well as the funds invested in such projects.
“They have been contravening the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2007, which established this Commission,” Muruako said.

He was sad that of the 11 capital projects meant for execution in FMCO, in 2011, there was no available document to back them up, or any justifiable reason for the abandonment of the projects.

At the Federal University of Technology, where he inspected a number of projects, including the proposed School of Health Technology building, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Muruako also frowned on the inability of the management to avail the commission of relevant documents bordering on projects executed and those abandoned.

The Acting Director of Physical Development and Planning, FUTO, Mr. Moses  Nwachukwu, who conducted the team round the project sites, attributed the non-completion of some of the projects to poor funding and lackadaisical attitude of some of the contracting firms handling the jobs.