As he clocks 100days in office of his second tenure, the Edo All Progressives Congress (APC) led by Col David Imuse Rtd has dared Governor Godwin Obaseki to carry out his threat to probe the multi-billion naira Benin storm water project, commenced by his predecessor.
The party, in a statement by its State Publicity Secretary, Chris Azebamwan, urged the governor to institute the storm water probe and make its findings public so that the very enlightened and informed Edo people would know the truth of the matter.
According to the statement:
“The governor while inspecting the Textile Mill Road catchment of the project, in Benin City, this week said the stormwater project was designed not to work for the benefit of Edo people, adding that his administration will probe the project and recover all the money stolen through it.
“Edo people know that the project was jointly handled by the State Environment and Public Utilities and Works with several commissioners including the present Secretary to State Government, Osarodion Ogie, who was in charge of the Works Ministry, deeply involved.
“While the project was ongoing, Obaseki (as chairman of the Economic Team), regularly accompanied his predecessor to inspect the progress of work after he played the key role of sourcing the first N25 billion from the Capital Market through his company, Afrinvest, which reportedly got N1.5billion commission from the deal.
“The commission paid to Afrinvest was for acting as Consultants to the project and drafting the project proposal which, Obaseki as the Head of Economic team presented for approval to the State Executive Council and followed it up by shortlisting contractors for the project.
“It will be comical and equally ingenious of the Governor to carry out this probe. It will not only be revealing but end up as a milestone which could well turn out to .become a benchmark for the country.
“The APC is disappointed over the failure of Governor Godwin Obaseki to showcase any achievement in his 100days but would rather taking to chasing shadows by threatening to probe a project he supervised its takeoff and later abandoned”.