by crossriverwatch admin
A member of the Cross River State House of Assembly representing Yakurr II constituency, Hon. Eteng Jones Williams has been accused of squandering over N40 million which he received for constituency projects on his chain of girl friends.
A youth leader and another female activist in Yakurr Local Government Council of the state told CrossRiverWatch in Calabar that they are very angry with their representative because he has neither advanced their position in the assembly nor enhanced their living standard.
Mr. Edet Arikpo and Mrs. Grace Itam who said they were speaking on behalf of Yakurr II constituents, said the people of the area are particularly peeved over an online publication (not CrossRiverWatch) which listed the “names of monetary beneficiaries of a paltry sum of N1, 000 to N2, 000 that he gave to some people as what makes him think he is impacting on the lives of our people when his mates are giving out scholarship awards running into millions of Naira”.
According to Mr. Edet “This man who is representing us cannot point to any project or program he has initiated or facilitated in the last two years. All he does is to frolic with girls and women of all sizes in Calabar and spending the money on them”.
They also condemned the publication and described it as an “embarrassment and a disgrace to the lawmaker himself who did not have the shame of telling the world the meager amount of money he was giving to the very people that gave him their votes which sent him to the assembly where he is raking millions every month”.
Our investigation reveals that the amount pasted on the online publication where Hon. Eteng says he has donated to empower the people over the two years he has been in the assembly amounts to about N1.6 million out of the reported N40 million he has reportedly received as constituency allowance.
Mrs. Itam told CrossRiverWatch that “It was wrong for the lawmaker to have posted such in a global site because the money given to the beneficiaries was too meager; he should not see that as an achievement having received more than N40 million as allowances meant to develop the constituency which he has done nothing about. What is N1.6 million out of N40million? We do not even have a constituency office as his colleagues elsewhere have done”.
Edet Arikpo told CrossRiverWatch that the lack of a constituency office has denied the people the opportunity of contributing to decision making in the assembly “lack of constituency office has seriously hampered free interaction between the lawmaker and the people because the people do not have a place to meet with him.
“We have implored him to render account of the constituency vote he has so far received during the two years and what projects he has executed, or how many people he has empowered so far but this has not yielded any fruits and he keeps avoiding the issue of meeting with the people”.
When CrossRiverWatch contacted Hon. Williams, he reacted angrily to the various accusations describing the people are ingrates.
On the online publication, he said it was his brother, one Okoto that posted the score card without his consent, asking “how can I post such whereas I know what I have done to the people is much more than that?”
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