By Jonathan Ugbal
The Speaker of the Cross River State House of Assembly, Honorable John Lebo has said that the Federal Government is scared of the concept and vision of the Tinapa’s Premier Business and Leisure resort.
The USD470 million project commissioned by former Nigeria’s President, Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007.
Now, Mr. Lebo took to Facebook to express his opinion on the facility which has been deemed a white elephant by critics.
As earlier reported, the conversation began on the timeline of Mr. Prince will Odidi, a Cross Riverian based in the United States and Mr. Lebo while replying to a question posed to him, explained the choice of location and how federal parastatals deliberately frustrated its growth.
“Tinapa is located within the Free Trade Zone. Donald Duke got it so right. The idea was to situate the project within the zone and make it easier for the investment in Tinapa to serve free trade zone infrastructure to engineer the economy.
“But, because the federal government feels threatened by the vision and concept, it singled out Tinapa from the other companies in the free trade zone and imposed it’s draconian tax on all the investors and shops.
“Several containers of goods meant for Tinapa are confiscated in Port Harcourt, when the investors complain to customs, they advice them to relocate to Lagos or Port Harcourt.
“Right inside Tinapa, the morbid presence of federal government agencies like Customs, Immigration, FIRS, export promotion council were a complete demobilization crew against Tinapa investors.
“So, one after the other all the companies and investors closed shops in Tinapa and relocated to Lekki and Onne.
“To now blame Donald Duke, Liyel Imoke and Ayade is a clear lack of appreciation of the core issues,” he wrote.
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