How Ajimobi awarded shady contracts, padded state budget – Governor Makinde reveals

On December 21, 2019, Governor Oluseyi Makinde of Oyo State painted a picture of the serious corrupt practices that characterised the administration of his predecessor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi of the All Progressive Congress, APC, in the management of the affairs of the state.

Governor Makinde alleged that the era of the immediate past administration was characterised by corruption, budget padding, mismanagement of funds, kickback syndrome, inflation of contracts’ fees, lop-sidedness in projects management, award of contracts only to their cronies and re-awarding of projects at double price, among others.

He made this sttement on a live programme of the Oyo State Broadcasting Corporation of Oyo State tagged ‘Live chat with GSM, a quarterly session with the Oyo State Governor’. He said;

“If I should talk about the finances of Oyo State as at the time we came on board, some people will not be able to walk on the streets. Up till date, we have not bought vehicles for the office holders. If we are to buy official vehicles for myself and other office holders, we will not spend less than N3 billion and we cannot afford that now. Up till today, I am still using my personal cars in office.

“Our priority is to the people. We prioritise what we can do to the people who gave the opportunity to serve them over ourselves. We don’t want to serve ourselves. On May 6, 2019, three weeks to take over, the last administration withdrew N5.2 billion and spent it to remain N19, 000 by May 29. Soon, those involve will have to explain how they spent the money on the people.

“When I resumed, I was scared. The government was running 67 banks accounts. So I asked for all the balances of the accounts. A particular account has N300 million, and another has N20 million. I asked the accountant general to prune the accounts down and put all the money in one account and which came to about N6 billion.”

“When we assumed office, some people came to me and said that this is how they shared money. I said don’t share the money to me. Let us use it to better the lives of the people of the state. IGR has gone up a bit because we have blocked loopholes. Let me also reveal this. We did not spend government money on those Christmas decorations that you see everywhere. Normally, at the end of the year, people and corporate organisations give gifts to the governor.

“So, when they came, I called my people and told them that these gifts should be channelled towards beautifying the state instead. So, we used the gifts to do those Christmas decorations that you are seeing. If we continue to be prudent, all will be well and things will go round. It is because we cut off the wastage, that is why we are able to do some of the things are doing”.