Don’t award illegal contracts, Oyo gov-elect tells Ajimobi

Oyo State Governor-elect Seyi Makinde yesterday urged Governor Abiola Ajimobi against awarding any “illegal and strange” contracts.

Makinde, in a statement by his media aide, Dotun Oyelade, kicked against what he alleged was a hasty award of N30 billion contracts by Governor Abiola Ajimobi.

He said: “In the new contracts of N30bn which money is to be paid tomorrow, Monday, March 25, 2019, a large chunk of money was allocated as consultancy fees and design to outsiders even when the Ministry of Works and Housing has qualified engineers”.

He said though he had promised not to probe the outgoing administration, civil servants who connived in illegal and strange contract awards would have themselves to blame in the next few weeks.

Makinde warned permanent secretaries and the Office of the Accountant-General as well as banks to be wary.

He alleged that there were also plans to “mischievously increase the wages of tertiary institutions’ staff for the next two months without actually paying them before May 29 thereby leaving the new administration to grapple with the burden.”

In his reaction, the Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, Toye Arulogun, said: “The government of Oyo State’s earlier statement on a related matter on the siphoning of funds subsists. Meanwhile, let it be reiterated that the mandate of the Ajimobi administration will not lapse until the 28th of May 2019. Government will not fold its hands counting days but make the remainder of its days count.”