By Onwukwe Ezeru, Abia
All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) leadership in Abia State has accused the Governor Okezie Ikpeazu-led administration of achieving nothing meaningful with the N60 billion allegedly received from the federation account for the past one year.
It also said that the complete halt in the governance of the state despite continuous inflow of revenue, gives credence to the
allegation of diversion of funds belonging to Abians by the People Democratic Party (PDP) led
government.
Addressing journalists at the APGA secretariat in Umuahia, the state chairman, Revd Augustine Ehiemere, said that Abia State pays N28 billion as wage bill, arguing that few road projects on ground could not heve gulped N32 billion in a year.
According to him, “this leaves glaring traces of miss-governance and misappropriation of funds.”
He also alleged that the N1 billion agricultural loan that was
given to Abia farmers recently by the World Bank through the state government had been hijacked by the state government “without a farmer in Abia receiving a kobo.”
Ehiemere also alleged that funds meant for local government were hijacked by the state government without executing any project and workers’ salaries for months not paid, adding, “A state like Abia with numerous sources of internal revenue generation would have no reason to cry for paucity of funds if the government had tamed the activities of illegal revenue agents by sanitizing all revenue generation.
“So the government has itself to blame”.
On Ikpeazu’s foreign trips, APGA chief said, “On assumption of office, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu travelled to different countries of the world including the United States, Turkey and Czech Republic. In each of the trip, which his government claimed was aimed at bringing investors to Abia, was accompanied by dozens of aides and associates. Unfortunately up till this moment not even a single investor has been
sited in any part of Abia after millions of tax payers money had been fritted away.”
Reacting on the allegations by APGA leadership in Abia State, the chief press secretary to Governor Ikpeazu, Mr. Enyinnaya Apolos, who spoke to journalists through phone calls in Umuahia, said that the governor’s trip abroad was not to attract investors.
He said that the governor did not travel to Czech Republic.
On the N1 billion agric loan, the state imagemaker said that Abia farmers were yet to receive it because a committee was set up to manage the fund.
