News that over 146 companies are on a firing line from public contracts process in the country may sound big, but not strange, for those who have been following evolutions of the sector in the country over the years.

In fact, the public contracts sector has been hijacked by money mongers who use every available means; holy or not, to satisfy their selfish desires. The reasons advanced for their eventual ban, should their justifications not be tenable, range from corruption, embezzlement to fraud. This may not be surprising to many who master the gymnastics the companies play to win one contract or the other. While some of the companies exist only in the briefcases of their founders who nose around for contracts in public offices, others pass for what they are not. The effects are that contracts are awarded to companies that do not have the technical and financial prowess to execute them.

It always begins from the composition of tender files. Either ill-adapted companies trick tender committees with faulty information on their technical and financial capability to execute a contract in question or in complicity with the same tender committee, the companies propose cost-effective rates to attract the sympathy of selection teams. Once awarded; sometimes on ‘give and take’ basis, the companies are left with very little to do effective work or they are caught up with field realities which require what they do not have. Hence, the phenomenon of project abandonment thrives with beneficiary populations left alone to suffer.

The 146 companies that have been booked are just part of the lot that have sold ethics to the dogs to shamelessly destroy the public contracts sector in the country. Excluding them from the system is good but rooting off corrupt officials from tender boards is better. Complicity between the corrupt officials and impostor companies is damaging to the country’s image and a serious drawback to the long-term development vision being pursued by public authorities.