Maplewood Estate Residents Association Denies Corruption Allegation Levelled Against Its Executive

The leadership of Maplewood Estate has denied an allegation that a sum of N50 Million was squandered by its executive, saying that there is no iota of truth in the report.

Speaking on Saturday June 10, 2023, during a media briefing at the estate, Chairman of Maplewood Estate Residents Association, Mr Kehinde Oseni Akerele denied the allegation reported in an online news platform, saying that it is total false and that it did not show the true state of things in the estate.

According to him, “as at the completion of a project we embarked upon in the estate, the money contributed was not up to N50 million,” adding that a sum of N33 million was collected for the project through the N200,000 contributed by each landlord in the estate.

“A sum of N200,000 was earmarked for each house to pay, and not all the houses in the estate paid the money.

“Infact, we had to borrow some money from the purse of the association and we also get loans from a few of our executive members,” he said.

The treasurer of the estate, Alhaji Adeolu Kilani, presented a breakdown of the expenditure for the project and a statement of account to journalists at the event.

The statement revealed that as at August 11, 2022, a sum of N7.8 million was transfered to the bank account of the contractor, while another N5 million was transfered to him on August 26, 2022.

On September 19, N10.7 million was also transfered to the contractor as indicated in the statement of account.

The table below shows how other transactions were done as presented by the treasurer.

The treasurer also emphasized that the association’s chairman did not have anything to do with the estate’s money as he does not keep the association’s money.

He added that before any money goes out of the treasury, it passes through the due process.

Speaking about the project,
Chairman of Works for the estate, Engr. Jimoh Alade said that the project ought to have been executed in 2013, but that it was delayed due to insufficient funds, and that it was later scheduled to begin in 2018, but that it was suspended due to the same reason.

“But, thank God, this time around, we executed and completed the project. It is perfectly okay with stable power supply estimated around N51 million.

“As at the time of commissioning, we realized only N33 million, we borrowed some money from members of the association and I also had to drop N1 Million, apart from the initial N200,000 that I contributed as a landlord.

“In the estate, we have five 500 KVA transformers, four are already loaded (500KVA x 4 totalling 2,000 NVA).

“This means we have a total maximum of a 11KVA network and 33KVA, 2.5NVA, we had made provision for expansion in the estate.

“Let it be known that even the existing transformers are underutilized. They are 43, 51, 47 and 52, which means the transformers are comfortably loaded, but underutilized.

“They have served the estate for three months with full voltage, stable power supply, good frequency, which we enjoyed till April, 2023, when something happened. This was technical and it’s normal, it’s a complete mini-sub station with feeder pole, step-down, etc,” he said.