Aregbesola Admits to Inflating Airport Contract by N7bn

Posted by Thandiubani on Wed 20th Jan, 2016 - tori.ng

The Osun State Government has admitted to inflating airport contract as accused by the opposition party who accused the governor of trying to embezzle money through the process.

Osun State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola

The Osun State Governor, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola, has admitted to inflating airport contract used in building the Moshood Abiola International Airport at Ido-Osun, Osun State.

This was made public by a consultant to the state government on information, Mr. Sunday Akere, who spoke on behalf of the governor.

According to Punch, he said the contract was not inflated to siphon the state’s resources as alleged by the Peoples Democratic Party.

Akere said the increase in the contract sum became relevant because of the inflation and the fall in the value of naira. He revealed that the initial cost of the airport was underestimated which made them to take the drastic action of inflating the contract sum.

Akere said, “The PDP in Osun should be ignored, they are just seeking relevance. They should find out how much PDP states like Akwa Ibom, Gombe and others built their airports.

“When former President Goodluck Jonathan was in power, he said he added an additional airstrip to the Nnamdi Azikiwi International Airport, Abuja with N36bn. We should be commended for building an airport with N11.5bn.

“If we are building a complete airport with a hanger and other facilities for N11.5bn, then we should be commended. The governor deserves commendation.”

However, the PDP disagreed with the governor and accused him of increasing unilaterally the contract sum of the airport from N4.5bn to N15.5bn as a means to embezzle the bailout funds it got from the central bank. The opposition party lamented that workers in the employ of the state were languishing in hunger as a result of unpaid salaries.