Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike,
declared on Friday that his administration would recover embezzled
public funds from erring contractors.
Wike specifically said he would ensure
that contractors who defrauded the state of N2bn in the immediate past
administration did not go scot-free.
The governor who was represented by the
Chief of Staff, Government House, Chief Emeka Woke, made the declaration
in Port Harcourt while receiving the task force report on the
renovation of selected state-owned secondary schools.
“In as much as I am continuing with the
important ongoing projects I inherited where Rivers State tax payers’
money have been misappropriated, I will not relent in ensuring that such
funds are recovered,” Wike said.
The governor expressed gratitude to
members of the task force for their hard work in compiling the report
and thanked God that they did not record any ugly incident during their
assignment.
Earlier, the Chairman, Taskforce on
Inspection of Government Secondary Schools, Eze Otoma Eric, informed the
governor that the inspection was carried out on selected secondary
schools across the 23 local government areas of Rivers State.
Eric explained that the entire project was mismanaged by the Rotimi Amaechi’s administration.
According to him, contracts were awarded
in 24 out of 42 secondary schools and the contractors were given 30 per
cent value of the contract as mobilisation fees.
The task force chairman said the
contracts were awarded with disregard to the due process panel by a
special three-man committee made up of former Deputy Governor, Mr. Tele
Ikuru, former SSG, Mr. George Feyii and former chairman of Senior
Secondary Schools’ Board, Chief Allwell Onyeoso.
Eric said the awards defied the Rivers
State Procurement Law of 2008 as there were no newspaper advertisements
calling on interested contractors to bid.
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