BY AGENCY REPORTER
Indication has emerged that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission are interrogating some top officials of the Oyo State House of Assembly in connection with a N1billion vehicle contract.
Report had it that the Deputy Clerk of the Assembly and the Director of Administration and Supplies were, on Thursday, taken to the Ibadan Zonal Office of the EFCC for questioning.
However, they were reportedly released in the evening of same day while the Director of Finance and Accounts to the Assembly was said to have been grilled on Friday.
It was learnt that the interrogation came following a petition by an Abuja-based lawyer and anti-corruption advocate, Tosin Ojaomo, alleging that the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Adebo Ogundoyin, in connivance with some top civil servants of the Assembly, defrauded the state to the sum of N1,031,380,000.
The contract is said to be for the supply of 33 brand new 2019 Toyota Camry car for the lawmakers.
Ojaomo alleged that Ogundoyin, his deputy, Abiodun Fadeyi; the Director-General, Bureau of Public Procurement, Ms Tara Adefope; Mrs S. K. Kolawole, Director, Finance and Accounts, Mrs B. O. Ogundipe; TM Portman Nigeria Limited and others, conspired to award the contract to TM Portman Limited, which supplied refurbished cars instead of brand new ones.
The lawyer explained that Ogundoyin and the alleged conspirators fraudulently arranged the contract to favour the company, claiming that the company erased the mileage of the vehicles to present them as new.
He stated that the fraud was exposed when the vehicles began to develop mechanical faults few days after being supplied.
The lawyer was quoted to have alleged that “The rest of the funds was diverted and shared with some government officials and their accomplices.”
The Chairman, House Committee on Information, Kazeem Olayanju, was unavailable to respond to the allegations at the time of filing this report.
