Immediate past governor of Lagos state, Babatunde Raji Fashola has spoken on allegations of financial impropriety surrounding his administration’s approval of N78.3 million for his personal website.
In a statement, he admitted that indeed a contract valued at that amount was awarded, but it involves the provision of other services beyond the upgrade of the website.
The contractor, Info Access Plus, had earlier denied that it received N78 million. The company said though it quoted N12.5 million for the upgrade of the website, www.fashola.com, it only received N10 million from the state government.
On Thursday, Fashola said only N12 million was actually awarded for the upgrade of the site while other services such as the handover countdown clock, mobile apps for Google, for iOS ipad, for Microsoft, and Blackberry and the annual maintenance cost for managing the site make up the total of N78 million.
He said due process was followed before the contract was awarded and that the procurement agency, PPA, did not raise any objection as at the time the contract was awarded.
“It was for these services that the contract was issued for N78 million, which the Lagos State procurement agency gave a No Objection based on the advice of the Ministry of Science and Technology, who are the government adviser on ICT matters.
“In publishing the contract award which was the government tradition under my watch, the procurement agency ‘s website summarized it as ‘upgrade’ only without detailing the other services and this has been distorted by the agents of hate as their suspected ‘smoking gun'”, he said.
On the accusation that the website was personal to him and that it was inappropriate to use a public fund for its maintenance, he said he site helped him to do his job as governor and to respond to the people.
