A committee at one of the north’s largest councils is set to hold an emergency meeting after concerns were raised about how multi-million pound contracts were awarded in the past.
Mid Ulster Council’s audit committee is due to meet after the Irish News revealed that the design contract for a £4m interpretive centre dedicated to poet Seamus Heaney was awarded without being put out to public tender by Magherafelt District Council.
It has also emerged that the firm appointed to design the centre, Coleraine based W&M Given Architects, was directly awarded the design contracts for eight projects worth £22.75m between 1995 and 2014.
The centre is currently being built on the site of a former PSNI barracks in Bellaghy, Co Derry.
The Northern Ireland Audit Office has said they will be looking at "procurement" as part of a current audit of the former council.
Major council contracts normally require a tendering process to be carried out with the award usually going to the lowest bidder.
Magherafelt Distict Council merged with Cookstown and Dungannon councils earlier this year to form the new Mid Ulster Council ‘supercouncil’.
A spokeswoman for Mid Ulster Council has said the new authority would have put the Heaney contract out to public tender.
Ulster unionist Audit Committee chairman Trevor Wilson last night confirmed he has ordered an emergency meeting of the committee to be held within days.
Assembly member John Dallat, who sits on the assembly’s Public Accounts Committee, has called on the Northern Ireland Audit Office to look into the matter.
Earlier this week Independent councillor Barry Monteith said he was going to raise the issue with the council committee.
Sinn Féin group leader at Mid Ulster Council Ronan McGinley said if issues arise from legacy councils there "needs to be a full and thorough investigation."
He said it is the responsibility of the audit committee to "ensure transparency and good governance."
"I think an immediate and effective response is needed as the Mid Ulster council has worked extremely hard to keep and build the trust of our citizens, we are working positively for the area and any issues there may be from previous councils need ironed out."
Between 1995 and 2014 Magherafelt District Council issued contracts for 14 building projects.
Design projects awarded to W&M Given ranged in value from a £107,000 renovation of the Old Courthouse in Draperstown in 1999, to the £9.6m refurbishment of the Greenvale Leisure Centre in Magherafelt in 2010.
Just one project went out to tender between 1995 and 2014, the £5.5m Meadowbank Sports Arena in Magherafelt in 2006, and stands as the only contract over the 19 year period awarded to a firm other than Given.
A £1.6m contract for synthetic pitches at the Meadowbank facility was awarded to the firm last year and a £2.2 million contract for an extension of Magherafelt's offices was given to Given in 2004.
W&M Given declined to comment when contacted.
