Prevention office followed up the printing contracts and disclosed overpricing in the estimating cost of (148) textbooks
Prevention Office: value of overpricing in the estimating cost reached to 15 billion dinars
Monitoring violations in a contract of British Company amounted to more than $23 million
An investigation team from prevention office revealed overpricing in the estimating cost of (148) textbooks by the ministerial committee established for this purpose, amounted to (14,687,377,467) billion dinars in comparing with the prices offered by the private sector.
The team confirmed in its report concerning the field visits to Al- Karkh education directorate, first and second Al-Rusafa education directorates and a number of schools to check the mechanism of delivering curriculum, assured signing contract with a British company in 2014 to author and print books for 6 years from 2014 to 2020.
The report pointed out that the above-mentioned company committed violations in the sixth annual contract concluded on 9/5/2018 to author, print and deliver 24 titles of English language curriculum for the current academic year with the amount 27,756,875,490 billion dinars, equivalent to 23,482,974.19 million dollars. The contract stated that the company shall author, print and equip the books, supplying and delivering it to the Directorate of Central Warehouses, moreover the company shall bear the expenses and fees resulting therefrom. The duration of supplying was 120 days from the date of signing the contract. The books were printed and kept in Kirkuk governorate in contrary to the contract, in addition to that the supplying occurred after the start of the academic year.
The report recommended the need to identify the real reasons that led to the change of curricula on a continuous basis, which led to a great waste of public funds and the lagging the education operation at the beginning of each academic year, in addition to that the Ministry of Education signed a contract according to the laws and applicable instructions with the specialized companies to print the curriculum. The books shall receive before the start of the academic, in addition to establish a central committee in the Ministry to follow up the mechanism of implementation of the signed contracts with the printing companies and to record any violation affecting the process of printing and supplying in the signed contract with the companies, and to refer it to the investigation if necessary.
The team met the Inspector General assistant of Ministry of Education and the team pointed out that the contractual methods stated in the instructions for the implementation of governmental contracts no. 2 of 2014, were a number of companies were assigned to print the titles of the textbooks which were chosen by the company, although the article (41) of Federal Budget Law of 2018 stipulated that (calling public and private sectors inside Iraq to print textbooks)and that it included the principle of competition between the two sectors, not invitation, in addition to the adoption of the price rate in the public and private sectors which were against the provisions of the implanting governmental contracts no.(2) of 2014, which stipulated that estimated cost was based on a comprehensive study of the prevailing market rates, not average prices.
The report revealed the existence of a letter from the Head of the Association of Iraqi Printing Owners entitled to the Inspector General of the Ministry of Education, which includes the large quantities of textbooks for the academic year (2017-2018) printed outside Iraq in (Al-Sefraa custom) in two trucks loaded with books and a letter issued by the Ministry of Finance /General Commission of Customs In 25/8/2017 that includes the seizure of trucks on the road between the Kurdistan region and the province of Baghdad, and this is contrary to the decision of the Council of Ministers No. (272 in 2015), which stipulated to obliged the ministries and entities not affiliated with the Ministry and other government institutions, to print its publication in Governmental printing offices and private printing offices inside Iraq, provided that no printing offices was conducted outside Iraq.
