Oyo Rep denies inflating the contract for a road project from N9 billion to N54 billion

Hon. Tolulope Akande-Sadipe, the representative for Oyo State’s Oluyole Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, has refuted claims that she overcharged for a road reconstruction project in her district.

The senator was responding to media claims that she conspired with Federal Ministry of Works personnel to raise the cost of a 45-kilometer road project from N9 billion to N54 billion.

The claim was allegedly made at a public hearing held by the House of Representatives in Abuja by the project’s contractor, DC Engineering Limited.

The Olojuoro, Ijebu-Igbo, Ita Egba, Owonomwen road project in her constituency in Oyo State was awarded in 2018 with a two-year completion period, but five years later, one kilometre of the road has not been finished despite the contractor being significantly mobilised, Akande-Sadipe said in a press conference on Tuesday.

She claims that several petitions from her constituents led her to support a motion calling for an investigation because the road had become appalling and was causing major human casualties on a regular basis as a result of accidents.

She argued that the lower legislative chamber should conduct an investigation and provide documentary proof of payments made to the contractor because doing so was part of her duty as a legislator to protect the interests of her constituents. She also expressed her concerns about the road’s appalling condition.

Her motion demanded that “the House establish an Ad-Hoc Committee to conduct a thorough investigation into the consistently flagrant breach of contract by the contractors.”

The motion further said that “the investigation should specifically concentrate on the construction and rehabilitation of the Olomi Olojuoro road, also known as the Ijebu-Igbo Ita Egba-Owonowen Ibadan road, with the following contracts and budget allocations.”

The legislator expressed dissatisfaction that she was being subjected to blackmail by the corporation, which she claimed had broken the terms of the contract to the detriment of the residents of the Oluyole region.

She said in a document she presented at the public hearing for the road project, “My attention has been drawn to a letter dated August 29, 2023, written by the solicitors to DC Engineering Limited Co and Oba (King) Adesegun Alowonle, the Emure of Ijebu, the person believed to be the company’s owner.

“In an effort to distract this revered committee from the actual situation of Olojuoro, Ijebu-Igbo, Ita Egba, and Owonowen road in Oluyole Federal Constituency, this letter accused me of pure lying.

The letter claimed that my goal in intervening on behalf of Oluyole is to promote a specific contractor, Aereatech Nigeria Limited, to the Federal Ministry of Works, but instead of addressing the substance of the various petitions and motions, including the most recent of July 13, 2023, they went into defaming my person, smearing my name, and engaging in scandalous defamation of my character.

The politician asserted that she was unrelated to the contractor in any manner and denied having any “direct or indirect relationship with the said contractor.” Never have I presented a contractor like that, and never have I inflated a contract.

Given that some portions of the road project were sublet to other small construction firms in violation of the contract, she claimed that DC Engineering’s competency warrants examination.

Akande-Sadipe continued by describing how she organised an inspection visit to the site in 2021 with representatives of the Federal Ministry of Works, the Commissioner of Public Complaints Commission, and representatives of DC Engineering Limited, only to learn that the business was accused of extorting money from locals to fix feeder road culverts that had been removed during the rehabilitation work.