The immediate past Lagos State Governor and ministerial nominee, Mr Babatunde Fashola, SAN has clarified allegations on the controversial N78 million spent for the upgrade of the website – www.tundefashola.com during his tenure. Fashola cleared the air on this when Abia senator Enyinnaya Abaribe asked him during the ministerial screening, ”Did you really open a Website with 78Million Naira?”
In his words, Fashola said, “I don’t fix contract prices, it is an institutional process. The only training I have is that of a lawyer. But in order to execute works on a project we need the input of architects, quantity surveyors, structural engineers and we have consulting ministries. For civil works it is the Ministry of Works, for science it is the Ministry of Science and Technology among others.
“Now periodically, they do market surveys with the Ministry of Economic Planning , the statisticians are there to fix prices from biro to iron rod to cement and it is approved and becomes the benchmark price of government procurements, nobody can award any other contract over that benchmark. The unfortunate thing about money is that it often raises suspicions even among brothers. Nobody has alleged that I have corruptly enriched myself, I could not be the master of computers and technology.”
