Osun probe panel begins public sitting

Former Director-General Bureau of Due Process, Mr Gbenga Abiola, under the administration of Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, on Monday, informed the panel probing contracts awarded between 2003 and 2010 that failure of the incumbent governor, Mr Rauf Aregbesola, to release money for some of the contracts made them to be moribund.

Appearing before the probe panel headed by Professor Femi Odekunle, that is looking into the abandonment of the project for the upgrading of the nine technical schools in the state and the supply of lab-less kits into primary schools and secondary schools in the state, he said the project was stalled because the present government of the state failed to advance money for it.

According to him, the contract sum for the two projects was N4.1 billion and a deduction of tax and stamp duty which amounted to N700 million was made, making the actual cost of the contract to be N3.4 billion. The contract, which he said was in four phases and included supplying of equipment to the technical schools, erecting building to house the equipment, capacity building and supply of lab-less kits, was awarded to an Israeli company, Skill–G.

Mr Abiola added that part of the project was over 90 per cent completed, but the construction of building that would house the equipment was 38 per cent completed, but work could not continue on the site because the present regime was not convinced about the project. He explained that in April 2011, he wrote a letter to the incumbent governor to release more money for the project, but he declined, adding that inability to complete the building made the equipment procured to lay fallow, just as he warned that failure to complete the building would make the part of the building already constructed to deteriorate.

When the panel said it noticed some defects on some of the buildings, Mr Abiola said those defects had been noticed earlier by the bureau, and the matter was reported to the contractors, but they requested for more fund to carry out the repair, which had not been released.