Governor Rochas Okorocha on Friday rallied scores of senior journalists, especially of Igbo descent, to Owerri on a tour of the state. The event comes against a backdrop of allegations of mismanagement of N26bn bail-out fund granted the state government by the Buhari administration in April.
The bail-out funds totaling N338bn was a federal government initiative to assist 27 states which were unable to pay salaries of workers. Imo state was one of such states. Civil servants in the state as at May1, 2016 were last paid 70 percent of their salaries in January, pensioners cannot even remember when they were last paid.
The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) had in a widely-publicized report noted that, “Imo State applied for and received bailout funds of N26, 806, 430, 000.00 from the Central Bank of Nigeria which were domiciled with two commercial banks namely Fidelity and Zenith banks.
“In the course of analysis, it was discovered that some transfers were made into certain Imo State Government accounts which are not related to salaries and emoluments as follows: N2bn paid into a Government Account; N2bn into an Imo State Project account; N2bn transferred into microfinance bank; and a management fee of N21, 017, 810.00 was paid into an unspecified account.”
The report was signed by Mustapha Hussain on behalf of the Commissioner, Public Enlightenment.
The media goons, Ripples Nigeria learnt, will undertake a visit to most parts of the state where the Okorocha administration has tangible developmental strides to showcase.
A top government official in the Ministry of Information, while confirming the special invitation extended to media men from outside the state, disclosed Saturday that the gathering had become necessary to clear doubts surrounding the progress made by the administration since its five-year stint in governance.
Said he, “What the governor has done is to bring our illustrious sons and daughters home to see things for themselves. They say seeing is believing”.
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