The Contractor of Government High School Ilorin Renovation Project, Concel Engineering Nigeria Limited, has written letters to the Elites Network for Sustainable Development (ENetSuD) over the Social Audit of the project carried out by the anti-corruption body.
ENetSuD is a Civil Society Organization (CSO) and and anti-corruption body known in Kwara for tracking Government projects for the purpose of accountability and transparency.
In the letter signed by the Contractor’s Quantity Surveyor Kabeer Oloyede, and titled “Social Audit of Capital Projects in Kwara State: Effective and Efficient Management of Kwarans Money”, the contractor admitted to the fact that the audit of the project by ENetSuD has promoted probity, transparency, accountability and value-for-money on the project.
The contractor said the Social Audit has given financial control on state projects and ensured judicious spending of Kwara’s money.
“The exercise of construction audit recently embarked upon by ENetSuD has undoubtedly given additional financial controls around one of the state’s largest capital expenditures to make sure Kwara’s money is being spent judiciously” the Contractor said.
The contractor testified that the audit was beneficial to the government, Kwarans and the company executing the project.
“The Social Audit is a laudable scheme. The process doesn’t just benefit the client (employer), Kwarans at large, the contractors benefit from the audit as well”.
The contractor pleaded for earlier audit of future projects starting from the contracting stage.
“However, on subsequent projects, we urge that the scheme is introduced early at the contract stage other than in the middle of the project, and this would undoubtedly result in increased savings through cost avoidance.
“The early involvement would yield more savings than a stand-alone, closeout audit. Bringing an auditor in during the contract stage will also help ensure that risks and rights under the contract are being protected.” the Contractor said.
In another separate letter, the contractor explained to ENetSuD that it encountered and executed many items not captured in the Bill of Quantity (BoQ) by the Ministry of Education that awarded the contract but its application for variation was not approved.
“Some of these issues were raised by the contractor during ENetSuD’s bilateral meeting with the contractor on July 11” the Contractor said.
It will be recalled that ENetSuD had earlier released a preliminary report on the project as regards the re-calculation of BoQ and level of work done at the site, where many issues related to inflation of contract sum, improper project execution, among others, were pointed out by the anti-corruption body.
