Ogun Assembly indicts former OPIC MD, Odusolu over alleged ‘missing N2.5bn

Ogun State House of Assembly has indicted the former Managing Director of the Ogun State Property and Investment Corporation (OPIC), Babajide Odusolu over an alleged missing N2.5 billion.

The Assembly also asked Odusolu to refund a sum of N40m that was allegedly unaccounted for in 2019 into the State coffers within six months.

On Friday, the lawmakers said they received and adopted the report of its Committee on Public Accounts and Anti-Corruption, which considered the 2015-2019 State Auditor-General’s report on OPIC,” asking anti-graft agencies to probe and recover into the State’s coffers, a balance of N2,579,771,717.71.

The Chairman of the committee, Musefiu Lamidi, had moved the motion for the adoption of the report; it was seconded by Oludaisi Elemide and supported by others through a voice vote.

Giving the breakdown, according to the report, “the Committee observed that the audit report revealed that in 2019 after generating an income (including subventions and grants) of N3,817,778,776.65 the Corporation expended a total of N1,197,182,579.27 and the balance is N2,620,596,187.38. The expected bank balance at the end of the year 2018 was N685,194,035.01 and this brought the expected balance to the tune of N3,305,790,222.39 which was available to the Corporation.

“Considering the Year 2019 bank balance sheets submitted to the Committee, the sum of N726,018,504.68 was contained in the Bank balance sheets and this represents an unaccounted balance of N2,579,771,717.71”.

In its recommendation, the Assembly noted that the 8.2 hectares of land at Isheri, sold in favour of Rainerhill Internationals Services Limited, a subsidiary of Pesianas Group, at the “undervalued price of N164M,” was not done in the best interest of the State.

While requesting that all title documents issued in favour of Rainerhill Internationals Services Limited on the land be declared null and avoid, the Assembly maintained that OPIC should retain the land ownership.

Also, the Committee sought a retrospective legislative approval for what it called an “expended unbudgeted sum of N881.5M,” failure to which Odusolu was expected to refund same to government’s purse in six months.

It was also recommended that the embargo placed on a sum of N608,226,371.69 in 16 banks belonging to OPIC be lifted.

Also, the Assembly requested that a “proposed 5-star Hotel, Ikeja which had no physical existence, yet a sum of N45,025,064:00 was expended to obtain title documents” should be investigated.