AJIMOBI INAUGURATES PROBE PANEL ON ALAO-AKALA'S CONTRACTS

By NBF News

Senator Abiola Ajimobi, the Oyo State Governor yesterday made good his earlier threat to probe the four year administration of his predecessor, Adebayo Alao-Akala with the setting up of an eight-member contract review committee to investigate all the contracts awarded and implemented during the latter's tenure.

While inaugurating the committee at the Executive Chambers of the governor's office, the state Deputy Governor, Chief Moses Alake-Adeyemo, who represented the governor said the probe was in tandem with the government's determination to encourage due process and transparency in the conduct of its business.

He pointed out that the committee was empowered to ascertain among others things, the level of commitment of the past administration to various contractors across the state, while adding that the committee was not targeted at any person or group, or to witch-hunt any government official either serving or retired.

Alake further disclosed that the committee, headed by Mr. Oluremi Osiberu had eight weeks to submit its report and had as its terms of reference to identify all outstanding contracts to examine the extent of compliance with due process, while awarding the contracts and to establish or verify the extent of completion of each contract.

Meanwhile, Ajimobi has joined his counterpart in other states to press for increase revenue allocation from the Federal Government.

Speaking with aviation correspondent on Wednesday, Governor Ajimobi said the need for revenue allocation formula was long overdue. According to him, the N18,000 new minimum wage of workers would be hard to sustain if the status quo remained. He added that states that wanted to embark on massive developmental projects would be in trouble if they continually paid the new wage and yet no increase in revenue from the Federal Government.

He, however, explained that Oyo State was working hard to increase its internally generated revenue.