On July 7, 2022, Dataphyte published a report revealing that despite a N202 million contract awarded for renovation of the Ondo State Radiovision Corporation building, the contract has not been executed despite having a twelve months execution period from March, 2019.
Before the report was published, Dataphyte reached out to different officials in the government, seeking explanations as to why the project had been delayed.
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After our enquiries, the contract period on the Ondo state open contracting portal for renovating the Radiovision building was changed from 12 months to four years and four months, with an expectation to conclude the contract by August 2023.
But the alterations did not stop at the Radiovision project, delivery dates for several other uncompleted projects, running into billions of naira, were altered on the open contracting portal.
For instance, the construction of flyover across Sagamu-Benin expressway worth N5.047 billion was earmarked for a duration of twelve months from 7th January, 2019, which would mean that the completion should happen by February, 2020, however the delivery date was changed to 20th of July, 2023. A three-year addition to the earlier delivery date.
Likewise, the construction of a 5.569Km Gaga township road was earlier meant to be completed within twenty-four months from January 1, 2019, however the date was changed to July 20th, 2024. Again, an extra 3 years was added to the delivery dates.
The construction of Iyere/Ipele Road Phase two, with the duration for completion meant to be twelve months from January, 2019, was changed to July, 2027. An additional 7 years was added to the expected delivery period.
Other projects such as building a Computer Resource Centre for Ondo State University of Science and Technology, Okitipupa, and the renovation of different classrooms across the state had their delivery dates changed from periods ranging from six months, to as long as two years.
Ondo BPP Denies Alteration but Reverts Contract Duration to Original Period After Outreach
Dataphyte reached out to the Ondo state BPP to seek clarifications on the change of contract delivery date, however the desk officer, who identified himself as Ibukun denied that such could happen on the Bureau of Public Procurement procurement portal.
He promised to ensure that the senior official who is responsible for handling public responses does the clarifications.
The senior official who spoke to Dataphyte on Wednesday July 20 without identifying himself, noted that it was impossible for anyone to update or change the period for delivery of a project on the portal. He further argued that even if contracts were reviewed by the state government, a new upload is usually done and as such our claims on change of delivery date for contracts could at best ‘be a false one’.
The official during the conversation noted that he was right in front of the state’s open contracting portal and insisted that the date on the portal is the initial date in which the contracts were meant to be delivered.
He noted that the government recently updated some contracts due to lack of finance and others, but the portal has not been reviewed, alleging that Dataphyte’s findings were unfounded and impossible.
However, on Friday, July 22nd, about two days after the phone conversation with him, the contract dates that had been reviewed upward were reverted back to their earlier duration of completion at inception.
The Bureau of Public Procurement offered no answers for the change in contract dates on the Public Procurement portal after Dataphyte’s report; neither were any given when the changes were reverted.
Implication for Data Reliability and Accountability
Extending the delivery dates on contracts delays delivery of critical infrastructure and services to citizens. Beyond that, it casts a shadow on fiscal transparency and raises the question, can data uploaded on these portals be trusted?
A Public Procurement expert, Franklin Oloniju noted that the changing of details on the open procurement portal is dangerous for data reliability and wrong.
Franklin stated that it is important to ask questions over this kind of anomaly and where such issues are continually flagged, it raises keen questions about open contracting and brings to the fore issues of corruption and accountability.
“This development is wrong and there is a need to understand where the collusion is coming from and who is responsible for such an act or why such an act happened in the first place” he noted .