Date: 2021-02-25

Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has said it recovered N15 million cash from past and present Kwara state legislative and executive members over poor execution of projects.

Other items recovered from the former and current government functionaries include furniture and electronic appliances.

ICPC said the affected persons hail from Kwara Central senatorial district of the state, adding the period is in the last few months of its "operation track the constituency projects."

The Commission said that it had tracked 240 projects on road, water and schools out of which about 59 contractors were asked to go back to sites to correct some abnormalities.

ICPC added that it had made recoveries of 2,677 furniture, 57 computer system and 16 generating sets.

The team leader ICPC Kwara Constituency and Executive Projects Tracking, Aminu Bala said the phase two tracking exercise was an initiative of ICPC called "constituency and executive tracking exercise".

Aminu noted that the aim of tracking the projects is to ensure accountability on the part of lawmakers and executives and for communities to take ownership of various constituency and executive projects in their domain.

He also informed that his team's focus was to enlighten the communities on how to question the value and quality of constituency projects and take part in its execution.

Aminu, however, said the Commission sat down with Education Secretaries of four Local Government Areas that formed Kwara Central Senatorial District and came up with a list of deserving schools based on needs assessment.

"Today is the peak of the exercise, we are going to handover the recovery items to the schools, equally the desks. It's the responsibility of the Contractors to move them to schools, we are going to give the list to the Education Secretary to ensure those Contractors delivery those items to various schools.

"The desks are to be distributed to various schools between Tuesday and Friday while the recovered N15m has been paid into Federal government Treasury Account," he stated.

Speaking on behalf of the Education Secretaries (ES), Ibrahim Ahmed from Ilorin-South commended the Commission, adding that if this type of exercise has been in place before now, there wouldn't be room for vandalism, embezzlement and the likes.

He urged the Commission not to relent on its effort as he promised the Commission of their unwavering support in order to move the Educational Sector to an enviable height.

Commenting, Principal Ago-Oja Junior Secondary School, Asa local government area, Idowu Bangbola, who received three computers and a generating set promised that the school would utilize it for the benefit and purpose designed for.

Also, Principal of Junior Secondary School Oke-Ose, Ilorin-East local government area, Yusuf Abdullahi received three computers system and a generating set.

He said the items received would assist the students in acquiring more knowledge in Computer as what the students were taught before now were purely theory but this would expose them to the practical aspect of the subject and the generating set would assist in powering the system.