These are infrastructural projects which are mainly constructions, this makes most of our activities to center on monitoring activities, we focus more on construction projects, but the function of the agency is not limited to construction projects alone, it has to do with every procurements that the state government embarked on, it will get to a stage in payment process that it will require certified. Payment process that it will require performance certificate which has to be issued from this office. It’s that performance certificate that the finance people will use in paying and that comes to create check and balancing.
So far we are not involved in the pre-contract process, but you can note that in every contract award letters, it stated clearly there that the contractor should lease with our office and other government agencies to see that the project is properly monitored and certified at milestones.
So for every contract of a project that requires payment they send a request to us here with valuations, so we now check the valuation side by side with physical achievements on ground, in most cases before you go for the inspection, the contractor might have surpassed the level of some of that valuations, so there won’t be need for us to drop or reduce the level of that valuations any longer we will just recommend that for payment but in some cases, if the valuation is higher than what we examined on ground, it is what what we examined on ground that we will recommend for payment. But in no case we are going to recommend more than what the valuation.
So, the ideas is to ensure that the state do not overpay any contractor at any particular time because such kind of things do happen, where you see people raising an alarm that they’ve done more than this. Even if you have done more than that, the housing ministry that is the ministry that engaged you directly made a recommendation and we cannot give more that what they have recommended.
Can you tell us what was the intention of the state Governor, Engr. Seyi Makinde for creating this agency?
So far so good, just like my Principal, His Excellency, Governor Seyi Makinde is so interested in creating a system that will become a legacy for this administration, the Governor is more interested in all these systems that we are trying to put together rather than those physical developments that we are seeing around, because with the creation of this agency, you will see that the process of contracting and the contract administration is now extended and more increasing and there is check and balancing.
It is not business as usual that a single office will process the award and also certified the execution of the project, so now, the agency or late me say there is now an agency in charge of the process of the pre-contract, examining the criteria for qualifications for you to be able to participate or for you to be awarded that contract, while a ministry, or a body or a department will be the one executing the project, using with the contractor day to day, just like the ministry of works will be inspecting and monitoring every contractors handling the construction of roads being constructed in the state, while we now come in to see that are these projects actually being done?
Aside that, we still have consultants in each contract, you can see that it passes through some desks, and this will make it very difficult for a process to be ordinarily skipped, so I think the check and balancing is there, and this is an agency that is physical and could be easily sustained.
Are you saying there are improvements in qualities of projects being executed in the state now than what we used to have in the past
Projects are done for so many reasons, there are some projects you embarked upon for political reasons, there are some you consider for economic reason, and some for social economic reasons in Oyo state under Engr. Seyi Makinde led administration, all the projects we are constructing are meant for both economic reasons and social economics reasons,they are for long term basis, and I can tell you that basically those roads that are being resurfacing in Ibadan metropolis now are due for resurfacing.
It’s just in Nigeria that it looks very strange, roads are designed for a particular period of time, and if you’re observant particularly in the City of London, the people in charge of the road construction there don’t wait until the roads gets bad before they come to fix it, most of these roads are designed for 15 to 20 years, so when its just 15 years they will just go there, scarify them and rescaling them, either is damaged or not.
So that is exactly what this government is doing now, and this government started with Ibadan very soon we are moving to other zones, I’m not from Ibadan, I’m from other zones, Ogbomoso to be precise and of my people at home that knew I’m involved in road construction in the state have also started putting a call through to me to press their demands, I have assured them that the Governor had made it clear that after Ibadan we are moving to other zones to do similar things, and these roads are very important roads as they are being lay out.
Ibadan is the highest populated area in Oyo state, it’s highly densed, the economy of Ibadan is higher than any other zones, in terms of population and all other things and the essence of all these roads reconstruction is to boost the economy, so is like the state is doing advert, attracting investors to the state, with the little resources that the State have, we are now open up Oyo to various investors around the world.
But our people in the new sites are craving for good roads that will link them up to major roads, because majority of our road in the new sites are bad?
It will take us lot of money to reach out to these newly created sites, we also felt their plight, but these ones that we are doing are the more pressing, we have intentions that if all these are in place, people now see Ibadan as a very well road connected area, easier to move around, both passengers and goods, it will be more easier for people that stays in Lagos, Ogun State to come and do business transactions here in Ibadan with ease to the extent that they can give and come back to their base on daily basis, these are the economical benefits of these roads, and government can now generate more income to focus on all these new sites, but it’s what we are very used to in this part of the World, this is part of the world that everybody wants to be a landlord, in fact it’s almost like a curse for anyone if you don’t build a house, but it is not like that in some other places, especially in the advance country, in fact in developed country they don’t bother to build houses, they buy houses, and when you’re buying, you’re buying when you know that it’s serviced, there are already some infrastructure there like roads, drainage, water, sewer, refuse collection among others, everything has been planned, that’s what what we are encouraging most. You can see that there are more estate developers agency in Ibadan now more than it was, so let that responsibility be shared between experts, and the real estate people rather than you buying a land in one undeveloped area that will not develop in the next twenty years. What mean is that government has to look at the economic importance of roads before constructing it.
You can see that all these roads are very important to our economic development in Oyo state, especially these road that re being renovated like UI to Ring Road, Dugbe down to Molete area, these ones are very important, so coming back to the nuks and crannies, it will get there, it’s stage by stage, you know those roads are categorized, according to their use and Importance, and this will also be extended to other zones as I said earlier.
So what will you say about procurement aspect of your mandate
For instance the Ibadan Airport is being owned by the federal government but out of the futuristic thinking of the Governor Seyi Makinde the project is costing the state government a lot of money, but I can tell you the benefit is huge, so when you say FDI that is Foreign Direct Investment, the people that you’re expecting to bring fund will spread in a community and go round. The people.gat will bring their funds into the state”s economy are mostly from outside the state or even outside the country, so the traffic at Ibadan airport as its now is not much, due to certain indices, and those certain indices are the things the state government are first taking care of, if you give way to Ajia when you want to go to the Airport, you will see the road how is so beautiful, that’s is one, the connection of Ibadan airport to Osun State is more easier now, particularly when the changeover around that place is being taken care of, and the circular road, those are major infrastructures that will help the functionality of that airport.
So when it becomes an international airport, it will be very much beneficial to the state economy and that is what we we intend to do, the current runway at the airport has limitations, because it has some kind of airflight that can ply on it, so if we are building an international airport, we have to make a provision for the bigger aircrafts, where they can land in peace, aircrafts like booeing 707, 708, Airbus all these are loads on their own and they need places for them to travel or taxi before they take off, so those are the accessories attaching to this laudable initiative by the state Governor, Engr. Seyi Makinde, he started the project and nobody knows exactly where he was driving at, so when the Bovas started the aircraft fueling in the airport, many were wondering what could be going on, people were like how many aircrafts are coming from Lagos to Ibadan, but now the issue of fueling the aircrafts where is no longer there, it has been sorted out from the onset, accessing the airport is no longer a problem, very soon people will begin to be taking off from the airport to Lagos and other countries without coming inside to Ibadan metropolis, that is the whole idea and that’s why I said our Governor is a futuristic thinking person because in the beginning. He had all those plans because of his background he was able to plan all these things right from the beginning, and now it’s getting to the final stage now, and our agency is involved as I said earlier that in every Oyo State Project but our involvement is at the monitoring level, and certification of their payments. So the contractor in charge which is the Crabeburg Construction company are doing well on the job and they’re also the one handling the construction of the Circular Road too, they’re doing well.
•Culled from Daily INDEPENDENT Newspaper