Ex-Osun Gov Oyetola Denies Breaching Procurement Law, Blames Governor Adeleke Administration For Changing Portal
The reaction came from the spokesperson to Oyetola, Ismail Omipidan, who heaped the blames on the Adeleke led administration for the development.
The administration of former Osun State governor, Adegboyega Oyetola, has blamed the incumbent administration of Governor Ademola Adeleke over the breached procurement laws in the award of N700million contracts, as reported by SaharaReporters.
The reaction came from the spokesperson to Oyetola, Ismail Omipidan, who heaped the blames on the Adeleke led administration for the development.
He described as misleading and a clear act of mischief the report that revealed how Oyetola violated the state procurement law and that the former governor also allegedly awarded one contract three times.
According to him “anyone familiar with Oyetola’s pedigree and outstanding trajectory of finicky scrutiny of records would immediately conclude that those behind the story have embarked on a futile journey, especially if the intent is to smear his person and personality.”
Omipidan alleged that the Osun State Government under Senator Ademola Adeleke only cleverly side-stepped the original procurement portal’s website and migrated data from it into theirs to suit their narrative to mislead unsuspecting members of the public.
He further said, “A scrutiny of the website would show that what they inputed there on Monday, July 15, is different from what one would find there yesterday and today. For instance, contrary to what they entered on Monday which indicated the GoF road contract appeared in three places, by yesterday, Tuesday, July 16, only number 36 showed the real contract and the sum, while 72 and 103 are all gone. What you now see on 36, is Ila rehabilitation, and 103, rehabilitation of grading of Ofatedo, as against GoF road rehabilitation mentioned as contract No.72 and 103 on their www.egp.osunstate.gov.ng. website on Monday. This is clearly one of the numerous fraudulent claims of the current administration in Osun.
“The procurement portal’s website “Gov.ng” was created by the current administration procurement. We only created “Org.ng”. The procurement website, www.ocdsosun.org.ng, which was created under our administration, is there for any member of the public to peruse to help this current public discourse.”
“If they want to migrate those data on the website we created to theirs, they should be honest enough to migrate genuine data and not attempt to tamper with them just to paint us black in the eyes of the public. When a contract is carried out through Direct Labour, one does not need any bidding from any competing contracting firm, contrary to the picture the Senator Ademola Adeleke’s administration is trying to paint.”
He claimed that the road was awarded once.
“The said road was awarded once. Fund was disbursed once, as against three times touted in the mischievous report. I will, therefore, implore SaharaReporters to verify my claim and go a step further by scrutinising all the contracts awarded during our tenure as well as those by current administration since November 2022 when it came on board.
“If anything, the governor’s spokesman, Mr. Olawale Rasheed, once told us how they decided to buy generating sets after the award of contract for boreholes. Equally, the State Information Commissioner, Hon. Kolapo Alimi , also admitted on air that they had awarded the Akoda road contract before going to perfect the Due Process. This is their Hallmark, not ours,” Omipidan added.
SaharaReporters had earlier reported that the Osun state government violated its own procurement laws in the award of N700 million contracts for rehabilitation of “Gof junction-Florentino School junction along Ori-Oke Oloruntosin, Ilupeju.
The procurement act of Osun state, 2015, makes clear provision for open competitive bidding for contracts. In this stead, contractors are allowed to bid for contracts and then after an open competitive bidding, the state government awards to the winning bidder, per provisions of the law.
Review shows that the state awarded three contracts for the same rehabilitation between July 2020 and April, 2021.
These contracts totaled N700.2 million at N233.4 million each.
All of these contracts were awarded through direct labour without any competitive bidding, this a flagrant abuse of the Osun state procurement act, 2015.
