The Imo State government has
responded to the call by a human rights group, the Socio-Economic Rights and
Accountability Project, SERAP, demanding the probe of Governor Rochas Okorocha
over the statues erected in honour of two African leaders, Jacob Zuma and Ellen
Johnson-Sirleaf.
SERAP had called on the Code of
Conduct Bureau, CCB, and Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related
Offences Commission, ICPC to collaborate with the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission, EFCC for a joint investigation of ‘incompatibility and/or apparent
and conflict of interest’.
The group had claimed that
Governor Rochas “may have spent over ‘N1 billion’ of public funds to build
the statues.”
However, in a statement by the
chief press secretary to the governor, Sam Onwuemeodo, on Tuesday, the
government said the state agreed with SERAP’s call for probe.
“First, we want to solemnly
subscribe to SERAP’s call for probe. We welcome the call. Our only concern is
that SERAP contradicted itself by also passing judgements. It would have
stopped at the call for probe to show they meant well. But they went ahead to
pass judgements and thereby jeopardising what should have been their innocent
call for probe,” the statement read.
“SERAP also said the statues
might have cost N1 billion. Then, how would SERAP address the issue of cost
again if at the end of the probes, the amount is either far higher or far below
what they quoted?” he said.
“Again, what if at the end of the
probe, it is discovered that the statues were not funded from government’s
purse, when SERAP had already talked about ‘apparent misuse of public
resources’?” he added.
“Our concern too is that people
deliberately tell unfounded lies. A week ago, all the newspapers had reports on
states owing salaries and the chairman of the Imo State branch of NLC, Comrade
Austin Chilakpa said the “State government is up to date in the payment of
workers’ salary” (see Nation newspaper, Sunday November 5, 2017, pg13). In
other words, the state does not owe workers including teachers. On the issue of
pension, the government cleared all the arrears in December 2016 and has begun
to pay monthly. These pieces of information have been there in public domain”,
the statement said.
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