Former Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola is embroiled in the middle of a $400,000 website development scandal brought to the fore by the present Ambode-led administration after the details of the lucre contract was splashed on the world wide web for public scrutiny.
Yesterday, in a signed statement, Fashola admitted that he did approve the sum of N78 million for the upgrade of tundefashola.com, and that the upgrade included the development of mobile applications.
However his explanation has raised more questions than answers as the general public tries to understand where the public servant they all loved to love could have erred so badly.
Firstly the firm responsible for the upgrade of the website, Info Access Plus, has publicly denied receiving N78 million to handle the contract.
In a statement released about a week ago, the firm said,
N12.5m was quoted for the upgrade of the www.tundefashola.com web site, which includes complete re-design of all the hundreds of page templates. Meanwhile, the LASG spent less than N10m on this and not N78M being bandied on the social around.
Info Access Plus Limited developed mobile apps for the top four platforms, namely Apple iOS, Google Play, Microsoft Windows Phone 8 and Blackberry World off the back of this same service cost.
However Mr. Fashola contradicted the contractor’s claim of spending less than N12 million for the website and mobile apps in his own statement. The excerpt from Mr. Fashola’s statement is below:
As far as the website contract is concerned, yes there was a contract. It went through procurement and was approved by the Government agency authorised to do so.
One of the services was an “upgrade” quoted for N12.5 million but awarded for N12 million. There were other services that were new; like a handover countdown clock, mobile Apps for Google, for IOS and ipad, for Microsoft, and for Research in Motion (Blackberry), which the existing website did not have, as well as the annual maintenance cost for managing the website.
It was for all these services that the contract was issued for N78 million, which the Lagos State procurement agency gave a No Objection based on the advice of the Ministry of Science and Technology, who are the Government adviser on ICT matters. In publishing this Contract award which was the Government tradition under my watch, the procurement agency’s website summarised it as “upgrade” only without detailing the other services and this has been distorted by the agents of hate as their suspected “smoking gun”.
For those who are familiar with mobile Applications, they will know that users either pay for them online or download them for free. What is usual is that applications for service are usually provided to users free, but somebody bears the cost. Since these applications were to be made available to the public for free access and to assist Government communication, we decided to pay for them. The entire documents are with the Lagos State Government and are available for those who seek the truth.
Some of the comments and questions raised by bewildered Nigerians on social media were observed by The Herald on Nairaland:
Tolusan said
Even if the facts as presented by the learned Silk (BRF) are taken as correct, there seems to be no way to justify 78 sacred million of our hard earned money on a website! whether built from scratch, upgraded or re-branded. It is not just reasonable, no it is not.
We need to review the process leading to the award of the contract, for instance, was tender for 78 million the most feasible of all tenders submitted having regards to the parameter set by the States’ Procurement Law?
Again why have the website in the name of the governor? What happened to his office, what happened to www.governoroflagos.com ?
How did the Procurement department refuse to object to an obviously unreasonable estimate for maintaining /upgrading a website?
In all I think BRF just told us that he played by the rules even if he used it for absurd purposes. Classic lawyer! Don’t break the rules just bend it!
Much like the difference between Legal Positivism and Natural Law in Jurisprudence.
Eleven said
His response is playing to the gallery with the intent to distract and divert people from the main allegations. Naturally trust people to focus more on the pig/mud aspects rather than his acceptance of paying that amount for website (s). I like Fashola, I know he is far more intelligent than this deceitful and dramatic response. Response like this can’t fly in a serious investigative panel. “My enemies, my haters” defence style is so old school
Calebo101 said
Who ask am about children he adopt?
You build website 78 million naira, yes or no?? Many many grammar for single allegation.
Meiji said
I’m not into website design so I can’t speak with confidence on the appropriateness of the amount, so there you go. But why should any activities of a Lagos State governor be reported on a personal website? Why not have an “Office of the Governor” website (maybe lagosstategovernor.com or something) where the activities of the Lagos State Governor would be reported and would host communication lines with the citizens? Maybe Akinwunmi Ambode would have taken over the website by now and continued using it. That would have been more appropriate.
Why should the activities of Fashola as Governor be reported or displayed on a personal website, “tundefashola.com”?
It still smacks of abuse of office to me. He should answer for this.
Texazzpete said
Terrible response.
Dude should have just kept silent. Spending more than 60 million naira of taxpayer funds on simplistic iOS and Android apps…who the heck asked for this?
Who also gives a crap about how many videos and pictures have been posted on the website? Why should that be a metric or an excuse for the amount spent? Is it the duty of the website builders to upload media, or Fashola’s media team?
What was the bidding process for the website that allowed a company without a website of their own to get the contract for an astronomical N12 million ?
Rubbish. Total rubbish.
Gradually the best of all our work shall be tested like gold in the fire. The sky is too large and bright for anything to hide under it.