The Chairman Mbaitoli Interim Management Committee (IMC), Mr. John Eke has denied an allegation of N4.9m making the rounds in the Council leveled against him. The Council boss was fingered to have dipped his hands in the till to remove the money for the purpose of procuring a transformer for the Council and nearby communities.
However, luck smiled on the Council when a patriotic citizen of Mbieri community called Uzozie relieved the local government of the burden by donating a 500KVA transformer. It was further alleged that even with the donation the sum approved by the Finance and General Purposes Committee (F & GPC) developed wings and became unaccounted for.
Explaining further, the Council chairman admitted the donation but added that the said 4.9m was utilized in the installation and consultations with the EEDC officials. He claimed that the remnant of the sum was used to reactivate the Council’s borehole among other expenditure
However, some of the councilors disputed the chairman’s claim arguing that the entire sum could not have gone into installation alone which one of them estimated should not cost more than three hundred and fifty thousand naira.
When the Director of Admin Services (DAS) was queried on this he claimed ignorance if the entire sum went into installation alone and referred our reporter to the new Works Committee chairman who he remarked was not present at the time. He indicated that the Works Committee Chairman who handled the work is now on transfer to another location but have missed his number due to phone repair.
It would appear that all is not well in the Council what with all manner of allegations against the chairman who is accused of sundry irregularities. One of the IMC members irked by the entire situation stated that they petitioned the governor on the incidents in the Council through the General Manager, Owerri Capital Development Authority (OCDA) Engr Innocent Ikpeamezie who according to him ‘’sat on the report’’
When our reporter reached out to the GM, he stated, “This is news to me. I don’t know what you are talking about. Can you provide me a copy of the petition to glance through if they gave you one’’. He further warned the reporter to be wary of information filtering from the Council lest he be misled.
Another weighty allegation was that chairman set up a committee that fraudulently collected the sum of twenty thousand naira each from community leaders who want to become president generals and an account at the First City Monument Bank reportedly was used to effect the collections. The chairman also dismissed this as untrue but admitted setting up a three man committee for the purpose of screening out people with questionable conduct.
