The contractor engaged by the Department of State Service (DSS) Cooperative (COMCOOP) to sell plots of lands at DSS Housing Estate in Ibadan, Oyo State, A-One Executive Professional Services Limited, yesterday said the cooperative is economical with the truth on the land protested against by subscribers.

The Principal Consultant to the contractor, Mr. Badmus Adedeji, made this disclosure yesterday while speaking in Ibadan, the state capital.

Subscribers, who bought plots of lands at the estate located at Ile-Titun area of Ibadan, had last Tuesday protested against the refusal of the DSS Cooperative to allocate lands to them.

It was gathered that the estate named as ‘Department of State Security Service Community Multipurpose Cooperative Society Housing Estate’ was sold by the DSS Cooperative through the contractor.

The DSS Cooperative, while reacting to the protests in a statement, alleged that the contractor has not remitted any of the money collected from the subscribers to the cooperative account, adding that there was breach of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) by the contractor.

But the contractor, in his reaction, maintained that the DSS Cooperative is the one that proved to be clever by half. Adedeji, who insisted that it was the DSS Cooperative that gave him the power to sell the lands on its behalf, noted that he was surprised that the DSS Cooperative was coming out with a statement to nail him in order to exonerate itself.

While assuring that all the subscribers would get their allocations as soon as the differences between the contractor and the Cooperative are resolved, he said the company cannot go to a land belonging to DSS Cooperative and sell it without its approval.

He then appealed to the subscribers to remain calm, adding that the issues would soon be resolved between the contactor and the DSS cooperative.

According to him, “There is an agreement between us. There is a MOU. I cannot just go to DSS land and be selling it. It is the DSS Cooperative that wants to be engaged in a clever game. They are just being economical with the truth. There is an MOU that states the sharing formula.

“They are saying that we do not remit the money, but the money is not the problem. I have told you my own side of the matter. I was given the mandate before I started the job.

“Where did we get the money to develop the site if we did not remit the money? They are economical with the truth. It is not possible in this Nigeria for one person to enter DSS land and be selling it. That is what I called conspiracy theory. I acknowledged that they gave me the job to execute as a contractor.

“But, what I know is that everybody will get their land. We are appealing to the subscribers to be patient with us as we sort things out and settle our differences with the COMCOOP. There are many things we cannot say here, what I know is that the issue will be resolved between us, and all the subscribers will get their lands,” he said.

(THISDAY)

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