Communications ministry paid N1.85bn on its N8.98bn Abuja ICT Park; the Auditor-General found it at foundation level and the 2026 budget gives it N7m

In February 2021 the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy awarded a contract worth N8,984,439,951.65 to build an ICT Park in Abuja. The Auditor-General for the Federation's 2024 Annual Report on Non-compliance, Volume II, records that N1,847,665,992.75 had since been paid to the contractor, and that on physical inspection the project "was seen to be at foundation level of about 10% completion". The 2026 Appropriation Act gives the ministry's line for the project, "Establishment of ICT Park", N7,000,000. Against every finding the auditors made on the park, the report records the ministry's answer in two words: "No response."

The findings sit in the report's performance audit section, on report pages 668 to 685, under the ministry's present name, the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy. The section is headed as covering the year to 31 December 2021, but the payments it examines run to December 2023 and the letters it cites were sent in 2025. Vero Record read the pages in the full report published by the Office of the Auditor-General on oaugf.ng, and set them against the ministry's own lines in the 2025 and 2026 Appropriation Acts.

The contract allowed a single advance of 15 per cent, N1,347,665,992.75, on the contractor's request. The audit records that the ministry paid it in three parts over two years: N900,000,000.00 on 25 March 2021, N102,166,730.00 by 11 June 2021, and a final N345,499,262.74 on 8 February 2023. Those three add to N1,347,665,992.74, one kobo short of the audit's total. By 11 June 2021 the ministry had paid N1,002,166,730.00, 74.4 per cent of the advance, yet it did not hand the site to the contractor until 19 September 2022. That is 574 days after the award on 22 February 2021; the audit calls it nineteen months. No performance bond was obtained before any of this money was released, although the Bureau of Public Procurement had directed in December 2020 that a bond of at least 10 per cent be secured on major contracts first.

A further N500,000,000.00 went to the contractor under a payment voucher dated 29 December 2023. The audit says no interim performance certificate or verified progress report supported it; the ministry relied on a letter from the contractor, dated the same day, promising to deliver project vehicles, undertake overseas technical trips and furnish a performance bond once it received more money. No bond was submitted afterwards. With the advance, payments reached N1,847,665,992.75, or 20.6 per cent of the contract sum. The auditors' photographs, printed on report page 675, show columns of bare reinforcing bars rising from a ground beam, and the report says mechanical and electrical work, finishing and landscaping had not started.

The report also finds one tranche paid twice. Two payments of N345,499,262.74, each described as the third tranche of the mobilisation advance, were approved by the Permanent Secretary: the first on 19 January 2022 under voucher FMCDE/CAP/606/2021, recorded in the capital cash book but not the vote book, and the second on 17 January 2023 under voucher FMCDE/CAP/149/2022, recorded in the vote book but not the cash book. The auditors found "identical contract references, amounts, and narrative descriptions" and no record of a reversal or refund. The contractor told them it received only one payment in 2023, but the bank statement it supplied left out the period from 2 January 2022 to 8 February 2023. The audit's N1.85 billion total counts that tranche once. If both payments left the ministry's account, payments would come to N2,193,165,255.49; that is Vero Record's sum, not one the report states.

Other findings on the same project include N396,654,732.40 paid from project funds for consultancy, office consumables and furniture that were not in the bills of quantities, with no evidence of approval to move the money; a provisional sum of N90,000,000.00 for foreign inspection trips, planned while the building was still at foundation level; a N94,047,561.00 variation for dewatering and soil works, after no feasibility study or environmental impact assessment was done on a waterlogged site; and no resident supervision of the works since 2021. Two payments totalling N447,665,992.74 could not be traced on the government's GIFMIS payment platform.

The auditors also say the ministry refused them the documents needed to check any of this, including payment vouchers, bank mandates and the due diligence report on the contractor. Letters dated 27 March 2025, 2 June 2025 and 13 June 2025 went unanswered. Section 85(2) of the Constitution gives the Auditor-General access to "all the books, records, returns and other documents" relating to public accounts. The report asks the Permanent Secretary to justify the refusal to the Public Accounts Committees of the National Assembly and to produce all the project documents.

The budget record shows how little money now follows the project. The audit notes N1,000,000,000.00 in the 2020 budget to start the park, and calls later provisions "inadequate compared to the contract cost". In the 2025 Appropriation Act the ministry's headquarters carries "Establishment of ICT Park", code ERGP29140906, at N10,000,000. The 2026 Act lists the same code and title at N7,000,000, on page 344, in a headquarters capital budget of N44,595,834,054. The unpaid balance of the contract on the audit's figures is N7,136,773,958.90; the 2026 line is less than a thousandth of it. The Acts do not describe the line further, and it is the only ICT park line under the ministry in either Act, so Vero Record reads it as this project; the ministry has not confirmed that.

The record does not put all of this on the present ministry. The Federal Executive Council approved the park on 10 February 2021 under President Muhammadu Buhari, when Isa Pantami was the minister, and the first N1,002,166,730.00 and both N345,499,262.74 approvals fall before May 2023. The N500,000,000.00 voucher of December 2023 and the unanswered 2025 letters fall under the ministry led since August 2023 by Bosun Tijani. The audit itself places part of the delay on the government side: no budget to pay the advance at award, a site handed over nineteen months late, and groundwater that took nine months of dewatering. On those points it supports the contractor's account of why work was slow. It does not support the payments made without a bond, a certificate or, in the auditors' words, a reconciliation.

The report establishes what the auditors found in the ministry's books and on site. It does not establish that any money was stolen, and no court has made any finding on this contract. The duplicate payment is the auditors' conclusion, which the contractor disputes. The pages read for this report do not name the contractor or give the date of the site inspection beyond a reference to 10 per cent of the substructure being complete in September 2023, so the park may have moved since. Whether the Public Accounts Committees have taken up these queries is not in the documents.

Vero Record did not put these findings to the ministry before publication. The report records that the auditors wrote to it three times in 2025 and gave it the chance to answer each finding. Any response the ministry sends will be published.

What this rests on

AuGF 2024 Annual Report on Non-compliance Vol. II, report pp.668-685 (Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, ICT Park). Contract sum N8,984,439,951.65 x 15% = N1,347,665,992.7475 (audit: N1,347,665,992.75, p.680). Tranches (p.673): 900,000,000.00 + 102,166,730.00 + 345,499,262.74 = 1,347,665,992.74 (1 kobo below audit figure). Paid by 11 June 2021: 1,002,166,730.00 / 1,347,665,992.75 = 74.36% (audit: 74%, p.673). Award 22 Feb 2021 to site handover 19 Sep 2022 = 574 days (audit: 19 months, p.672). Total paid: 1,347,665,992.75 + 500,000,000.00 = 1,847,665,992.75 (p.674, p.680); 1,847,665,992.75 / 8,984,439,951.65 = 20.57%. Physical completion about 10% (p.674). Duplicate tranche (p.683): 1,847,665,992.75 + 345,499,262.74 = 2,193,165,255.49 (our sum, if both left the account). Untraceable on GIFMIS (p.681): 102,166,730.00 + 345,499,262.74 = 447,665,992.74. Balance: 8,984,439,951.65 - 1,847,665,992.75 = 7,136,773,958.90. 2026 Appropriation Act p.344, ERGP29140906 Establishment of ICT Park N7,000,000; 7,000,000 / 7,136,773,958.90 = 0.098%. 2025 Appropriation Act p.335, same code, N10,000,000. Ministry HQ 2026 total capital N44,595,834,054 (p.344).

What this does not establish

The documents do not establish theft or any crime; no court has ruled on this contract. The duplicate payment is the auditors' finding and the contractor says it received one payment in 2023. The pages read do not name the contractor, do not date the physical inspection, and do not show the project's state after the audit. The Appropriation Acts do not state that line ERGP29140906 is the Abuja park examined by the audit, though it is the only ICT park line under the ministry. Whether the N2,193,165,255.49 sum was actually paid out is not stated by the report. Whether the National Assembly's Public Accounts Committees have heard these queries is not in the record. The ministry was not contacted before publication.