By Samuel Oyadongha
YENAGOA — A budget advocacy group, the Niger Delta Budget Monitoring Group, NDEBUMOG, has  raised alarm over alleged plan by the Federal Ministry of Environment to award contradictory contracts for its 2010 capital projects.

The group in a statement by its Deputy Communications Officer, Regional Accountability Centre, Mrs. Tina John, accused the Environment Ministry of duplicating some capital projects already captured in the list of projects of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs for 2010.

Specifically, NDEBUMOG cited the Federal Ministry of Environment’s advert in one of the national dailies, inviting tenders from contractors and consultants for some of its 2010 Capital Projects, as a clear attempt to deceive Nigerians.

According to the group, the advertised projects had exposed how money was being mismanaged in the nation, stressing that it was amazing that the Environment Ministry still advertised the same projects after its attention had earlier been drawn to the duplication.

“The ongoing process to award the said contracts exposes how the money of country is being frittered away. Many of the advertised projects are duplicated and already listed for the Niger Delta Ministry.

“Further, during the recent Medium Term Sectoral Strategy, MTSS,  Session for 2011_2013,  we  drew the attention of the Budget Office of the Federation and the Federal Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs to the duplication of many projects, which had appeared in the 2010 Federal Budget for Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and same time appeared for the Federal Ministry of Environment.

“Upon our drawing the Niger Delta Ministry’s attention to the duplication, we were assured that, both Ministries (Niger Delta and Environment) would meet to sort out the duplications.

Surprisingly, the Federal Ministry of Environment came out and advertised for Pre_qualification of Contractors for the duplicated projects,” the statement added.