A former General Manager of the Osun State Public Procurement Agency, Bello Basheer, said the administration of Governor Ademola Adeleke has discontinued the use of e-procurement software, designed to ensure transparency and is now operating the agency in secrecy.
He said this during an interview with PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday.
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Mr Basheer, who headed the procurement agency during the administration of former Governor Gboyega Oyetola, said the digitalised procurement platform was designed under his watch to make government spending transparent to the citizens.
He lamented that since the Adeleke administration assumed office in 2022, the procurement software and the dedicated website hosting contract details have been abandoned, thereby shutting the public from vital information about government spending.
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“If you go onto the website today, the total number of contracts you will see on the website today is not up to 10. Are we saying that the Adeleke government has only done just 10 contracts in the last three years? We all know the answer,” he said.
The former general manager claimed that the procurement system, under the Oyetola-led government, eliminated the need for personal connections to win contracts, automated the entire bidding process, and notified bidders on the bidding status through a transparent and criteria-based system.
He said contractors were evaluated automatically during live bidding sessions via Zoom, and successful bidders were instantly notified without human interference.
“The way the e-procurement system works is that as a contractor, you don’t even need to know anybody in the government before you can bid and be awarded any contract. All you simply need to do is register with the agency, indicate your area of expertise, and at any point in time when there are works that relate to that area of expertise, you get an automatic notification that then invites you to bid if you so desire.
“And once you apply and you have been pre-qualified, you get another notification telling you that you have been invited for the bidding process. There is a dedicated bidding room that was put up. We spent a lot of money on this area, where every contractor that bid and has been pre-qualified will have the opportunity to join in the bidding process during the Zoom call. You will know whether you actually won, and if you lost, the reason why it is so. It is a 100 per cent system-driven initiative. The parameters are set in the system,” he said.
The former manager alleged that the Adeleke administration deliberately abandoned the system, despite its success in attracting World Bank support and enhancing Osun’s fiscal transparency ratings.
“When they came in, for some reason best known to them, they decided to do away with this procurement software, which cost the government a lot of money and which by the way, won this government a lot of external funding from World Bank for putting all these structures in place, in addition to so many other things we did,” he added.
He expressed dismay over what he described as a regression into opaque governance, where only a few top government officials can access details about public spending.
“Unfortunately, because they’ve stopped using that software and the website, they no longer report to the public, the very same people they are supposed to account to, to give account of their stewardship to.
“So only the governor, and maybe one or two members of his cabinet, can really say, this is the total number of projects we’ve done, and this is the total amount of money we’ve spent. This is supposed to be information that is supposed to be within the purview of the public. But unfortunately, what we have now is a situation where this information is only available to some selected few. I mean, it’s really, really a shame.”
Mr Basheer warned that abandoning such accountability tools undermines public trust and makes it difficult for citizens to hold their leaders accountable.
Governor reacts
In response, Olawale Rasheed, the spokesperson for Governor Adeleke, denied the allegations, stating that the administration has not abandoned the e-procurement system.
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Mr Rasheed said several projects recently awarded by the state government were processed through the digital portal.
He specifically mentioned the award of 13 road projects, including the dualisation of Odo-Ori–Post Office–Oluwo Palace road, which he said were all executed using the e-procurement system.
“The recently awarded 13 roads projects done by the state government was awarded on e.-procurement portal that the governor flagged off Dualisation of Odo Ori- Post Office- Oluwo Palace with other 12 roads.
“There are eight other roads submitted by the Ministry of Works today for award that we are also starting on e-procurement portal,” he said.
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