By CrossRiverWatch Admin
The Special Assistant to President Buhari on Prosecution, Okoi Obono Obla has accused the Cross River State Governor, Senator Ben Ayade of misappropriating the bail out funds and the 11 Billion Naira Paris Club refund handed the state by the federal government not long ago.
Obla claimed that the bail out funds were funnelled through the private accounts of the governor’s younger brother for purposes other than what the money was intended for by the federal government.
The Yakurr born lawyer further claimed that the Paris Club refund is also what the governor is now converting into funding what he described as the governor’s globe trotting in the name of searching for foreign investments.
Bu the state government has dismissed the claim that funds were misappropriated describing it as mischief invented by a “busybody, rabble-rouser whose stock-in-trade is to peddle falsehood against political leaders in the state for narrow personal gains.”
A statement issued by Mr. Christian Ita, Senior Special Assistant on Media and Chief Press Secretary to the state Governor, Senator Ben Ayade, stated that for the avoidance of doubt, “the bailout fund was judiciously applied. The refunds from Paris and London Clubs paid to the state are intact. Not a kobo of the funds, which are lodged in a state government account with the United Bank for Africa (UBA) has been touched.”
According to him, “The reason for this is that the governor has directed that the funds be used to pay severance allowances to past political office holders in the state as well as clear outstanding gratuity to retirees.”
The statement scoffed at Obla’s claims that local government employees were being owed salaries, insisting that nobody is owed salaries in the state except for some workers who could not be paid owing to technical hitches arising from a biometric verification exercise.
“In claiming that local government employees are owed salaries, he (Obla) conveniently failed to mention that due to the hitches with the biometric verification exercise, some local government employees have in the state have been paid salaries up to march, 2017, even when they are yet to earn it.
“It is pertinent to mention that the hitches are being addressed and local government workers are being paid their salaries in full for all the months that they are owed, which is due to no fault of the governor who has ensured that every local government is liquid enough to pay.”
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