The Kwara state government has pulled down contract information for the ‘installation of Barb Wire on Fence’ from its procurement portal after Dataphyte’s report.
In the earlier report, Dataphyte analysis showed that a sum of N476 million was said to have been expended on installation of barbed wire on the fence.
The report by Dataphyte read in part;
“First, the Kwara State Government failed to give the required details of the contractor that won the contract. It reported that the contractor’s name was “Not Available”. Same for the contractor’s address and phone number. Besides, the state listed the email of the contractor as anonymous@gmail.com.”
In the state government’s response to the report, the government said the figure quoted on their open contracting portal was an error and blamed the error on the webmaster who uploaded the details. The government denied spending N476 million on installation of barbed wire on the fence, claiming that instead, a sum of N476,300 was spent.
It also noted that the contract was executed by the state’s Internal Revenue Service. The government noted that it commissioned an internal probe and gave its details as follows;
“There has been no project on installation of barbed wire for the fence since this administration came on board on May 29, 2019.”
“The said installation of barbed wire for the fence was done in March 2019. The work was done through direct labour in Phases I and II Offices of the Kwara Internal Revenue Services (KWIRS) for security purposes. The KW-IRS payment voucher (2019/0378) for this transaction is dated 14th March, 2019.”
“The cost of the said installation was N476,300.00, as against the N476,300,000.00 quoted in the said publication.” “Further inquiries are ongoing to ascertain how N476,300,000.00 was quoted in place of N476,300.00 on the website of the Kwara State Procurement Agency. This will forestall such errors in the future.” Statement credited to the Ministry of Finance in the state read.
Dataphyte review also shows that the state government has pulled down the contract for the installation of barbed wire for the fence from the state’s portal.
All contracts related to Kwara State internal Revenue Service have also been pulled down.
As at the time of this report, the government is yet to release a full report of the probe carried out by it.