Group drags Adeleke, PS to ICPC over alleged violation of procurement act

OSOGBO – A Coalition of Civil Society Organization, The Osun Masterminds, TOM, has dragged the Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke before the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), over the alleged fraudulent award of contracts.

A copy of the petition obtained by our correspondent in Osogbo, signed by the spokesperson of the group, Ayo Ologun, and received by the ICPC on October 31, 2023, alleged that the 332 borehole sunk by the government was in flagrant violation of the Osun Public Procurement Law, 2015 and thereby appeared fraudulent.

The group alleged that there was no budgetary provision for the borehole and Akoda/Oke-gada road project in the hometown of Governor Ademola Adeleke, saying “Neither did the state take a supplementary budget to the state Assembly nor advertised the projects for bidding before it was awarded.”

In a petition titled: Fraudulent Award of Contract by the Osun State Government,” the group urged the anti-graft agency to probe the governor and the permanent secretary, the Ministry of Works on why the company to whom the contract was awarded was not arrived any bidding at all, not even a “restricted bidding.”

“The company to whom the contract is awarded is not known to have any “special skills, experience, and proven track record over some time,” as stipulated in the Law.

“It is not established or in any way justified by the state government that the projects can be constructed by only a limited number of contractors, and that the engaged contractors are one of the said limited number of contractors, and that bids were invited from such limited number of contractors, as required by the Law.

“The state government parades a group of people and tags it the State’s Public Procurement Agency, but the purported ‘Agency’ is without the supervision of the Osun Public Procurement Agency Governing Board (“the Board”) to validate the Agency’s existence and operations, as required by the Law.

“The “No Objection/Due Process Certification” purportedly issued by the “Agency” as now bandied by the state government, obviously to paper over her failure to follow the mandatory
the procedure laid down by the Law is unknown to the State of Osun Public Procurement Law, 2015 (which is the state’s extant law governing the subject of this petition),” the group said.

TOM also urged the commission to seek to know the relationship between governor, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Work’s with the largest shareholder in the companies named for the two projects under searchlight, adding that it is ready to appear before the commission to defend the petition if need be.