Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq of Kwara State awarded a contract for the renovation of Government High School, Ilorin, at an inflated cost of N360million, setting tongues wagging at the amount of fraud currently going on in the state, Pointblanknews.com investigations have revealed.
The controversial contract was awarded to CONCEL Engineering, a Lagos based portfolio company owned by Governor Abdulrazaq’s long-time friend, Sola Braithwaite.
Checks at the Kwara State Ministry of Education revealed that the N360million renovation contract was split into two halves, Lot 1 and Lot 2.
According to a source at the Ministry of Education, “this was done so that the exorbitant and over-inflated cost would not be too obvious.
“That kind of amount can build the entire school from scratch. Honestly, we at the ministry know that this is just another usual trick of politicians”, the source who does not want to be named for fear of being sacked told Pointblanknews.com
Pointblanknews.com investigations revealed that the contracts did not go through competitive tendering. Despite the size of the contracts, there was no cabinet meeting to consider and approve it.
Sources told Pointblanknews.com that ever since he became Governor of Kwara State, Abdulrazaq has been using CONCEL Engineering to loot the state resources through over-inflated contract awards.
“Governor Abdulrazaq just approved the contracts for his close friend from Lagos at over-inflated prices,” a source told Pointblanknews.com
“The one company being used by Governor AA (as he is popularly called) is CONCEL Engineering Nigeria Ltd. Checks revealed that this is a Lagos based company registered at the CAC with a Victoria Island Address, No 1 Abiola Ajayi Street, V.I. Lagos,” a Government insider in Kwara State told Pointblanknews.com.
“The company belongs to a Lagos socialite Sola Braithwaite, who is a long-term close friend and confidant of Governor AA. Since Abdulrahman became Governor, Sola Braithwaite who has now divorced his wife has moved to Kwara to take advantage of his close pally being Governor.
“He has received multiple contracts worth hundreds of millions which were awarded by Governor AA without due process.” A Government source in the state told Pointblanknews.com
According to the source, “Sola Braithwaite also got his friend, Governor AA, to award COVID-19 contracts to his company, CONCEL worth tens of millions of Naira.
“It is the closeness of Sola Braithwaite and the manner of the contract awards that have led people to believe that the company is just being used as a front. The company does not have any real track record of executing major construction work. In fact, the CAC record shows that the company status is “inactive”. The last time the company filed any returns at the CAC was in 2011.
Governor Abdulrazaq has come under intense criticism for some contracts which were awarded by him. Some of the contracts have been hyper-inflated to ridiculous heights.
Checks reveal that indigenes of Kwara State have been irked by the fact that most of the contracts so far have been awarded to non-indigenes, particularly to those from Lagos which was the base of the Abdulrazaq.
