Friday, March 29, 2024

You lied, Ogun did not owe N202bn under Amosun, Ademolake replies Abiodun

Retired Permanent Secretary of the Ogun State Ministry of Works and Infrastructure, Kayode Ademolake has said claims from the Dapo Abiodun led administration in Ogun State government that the previous government of Senator Ibikunle Amosun left N202billion debt are untrue.

Ademolake’s comment was in response to the Commissioner for Works, Ade Akinsanya who over the weekend said “Abiodun’s administration inherited outstanding debt of N202billion from the Amosun government on roads alone.”

According to Ademolake, “For your information, Ogun State never owed N202b under Amosun regime, not even one kobo .It was an amount estimated to complete all ongoing and outstanding/proposed roads .The statement is completely a fallacy .No”

“That’s not correct. It is simply an amount to be spent on various projects if they are to be completed and not a debt. It is a deliberate distortion of facts.

“It can take like 5-6 years for all of this projects to be completed.This is called rolling plans, year in and out. It is not a debt.

“State budget on roads is usually about N60b a year. So a project of N202b May take like 5years to complete by a state government. It is a continuous process, no state government has that type of resources to pay at a go, such an amount of money.

It would be recalled that the Ogun State government had claimed to be set to begin paying compensation to owners of properties demolished by the administration of Senator Ibikunle Amosun to pave way for the expansion of some road projects across the state.

“Amosun embarked on massive demolition of properties across the state in his desire to expand some roads to as much as 8-lanes without paying compensation to affected owners.

“In addition, it was double jeopardy as many of the roads were abandoned midway through the construction process, while others did not take off at all.

Commissioner for Works, Ade Akinsanya, had also noted that the demolitions carried out by Amosun’s administration were unnecessary, adding that it ended up compounding the problems being faced by the present government.

According to him, the state government now has billions of compensation claims to contend with in addition to looking for another huge sums of money to complete the abandoned roads.

It is on record that Ademolake has been summoned by the Ogun State Assembly Committee on Public Accounts and Anti-corruption for clarification on the ministry of works’ financial records from 2015 to 2019 over “some infractions recorded in the audit queries.”

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