Bello to probe past govts over contract awards

From CHRISTIANA EKPA, Lokoja

KOGI State governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, has expressed his determination to probe the contracts awarded by past governments with the aim recovering public funds spent on such projects.

Bello who made the disclosure in Lokoja, the state capital, during a meeting with contractors handling some of the projects, said rate at which the contracts were abandoned were alarming and unacceptable to government.

He said his government appointed an independent consultant to visit the project sites and review them to ascertain which of the contractors had abandoned sites.

The contracts were awarded by the ministries of works, health, housing, transport and water resources.

Bello further said it was unfortunate that some contractors got money for projects awarded to them and did not carry them out.

According to him, his administration was not ready to witch hunt anybody with the probe, but to enable government meet the development demands of the state.

“I was sworn in, to protect the interest of the people of the state and am ready to achieve this. We must review what happened in the past, that is why we are reviewing contracts. We will not close our eyes to one naira that has been appropriated.

“We have seen people collecting millions of naira for contracts awarded to them but they didn’t execute and some people are saying we should not look into the past, we will definitely look into the past for the sake of the masses of the state”.

The governor added that he would not initiate new contracts until those abandoned were completed, saying his administration would also not entertain any request for variations by contractors.

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Bello warned the contractors against undue inflation of contract some as he was ready to defend every kobo spent while governing the state.

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He also frowned at attempt by some contractors to hide under the security situation in the state and abandon the projects awarded to them, saying government was already tackling the kidnapping menace in the state.

He warned the contractors not to blow the issue of kidnapping out of proportion as the situation was already under control.

He however directed the contractors to return to site while the government officials would meet with them and the consultant on after visiting sites together and come up with a final report on the projects.