Transition Report: Committee seeks probe into N410bn Edo debts

The Transition Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Edo has recommended a probe into more than N410 billion local and foreign debts allegedly owed by the state.

The committee made the recommendation on Monday in its report presented to the governor-elect, Sen. Monday Okpebholo ahead of his inauguration on Tuesday as the fifth democratically elected governor of the state.

Presenting the document, Dr Pius Odubu, who is the Chairman of the committee, said the committee was presented with N410 billion debts as against the N55 billion inherited by the outgoing government in 2016.

“For those of you who have the capability to fact-check, you will find out that the indebtedness today is much more. It is over N500billion,”he said.

Odubu, who is an erstwhile deputy governor in the state, said the committee also recommended a review of Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) on the management of Central and Stella Obasanjo hospitals.

“All employment carried out in the recent past should be cancelled, while the governor should investigate the true ownership of the Ossiomo power plant and Raddisson Blu Hotel.

“The same with Museum of West Africa Arts-MOWAA. We deserve to know the state’s equity in these companies as the outgoing government went blank on these enquiries.

“We also demanded a comprehensive review of the world bank funded EdoBest programme and a probe should be instituted to uncover its rather opaque operations.

“All major contracts issued by the state government under the Ministry of Roads and Bridges should be reviewed as they appear not to have followed due process, including the payment advance awarded to the contractors.

“The procurement agency indicted the government in its own report to the Transition Committee; hence we have advised the incoming Governor to take a critical review,”he said.

The committee chairman also called for the streamlining of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) ecosystem in the state, which he said appeared to be a duplication of duties.

“The outgoing government didn’t provide audited financial statements published or unpublished, hence the committee is advising government to institute an enquiry into this.

“The government couldn’t account for the number of teachers in the state; hence we demand a proper teacher headcount,”Odubu said.

The committee chairman said the document, made up of 24 page report and 800 annexures, was a product of three weeks of rigorous assignments, meetings, interactions, engagements and analyses of the documents presented to the committee.

“We are proud to present to Your Excellency, our report based on our findings after a careful examination and analyses of the official documents received from the outgoing government transition team.

“Your Excellency, it will interest you to know that the report being presented to you this afternoon was derived from our collective inputs during the several sessions we had as a team.

“We did not just carefully examine the five thematic pillars as presented by the government’s transition team, we took time to look at other information available to the committee through our interactions with relevant stakeholders in the state.

Responding, the governor-elect commended the committee members for doing a thorough job, saying the document would help the incoming government.