A former national chairman of the PDP, Cairo Ojougboh, who moved to the APC, has called for Delta state governor Ifeanyi Okowa to be impeached for running the state as out-of-pocket expenses.
He had earlier on October 4 written an open letter to the Presidency on Okowa running the state on a blank budget sent to the state assembly and demanding the assembly to produce a signed copy of the budget in 48 hours.
"Ten days after, the DTHA has not been able to produce a copy of a budget that was passed on Wednesday 1st February, 2017,” he told a press conference of APC leaders council in Agbor.
I hereby present to you the order paper, votes and proceedings and the report of the Finance and Appropriation Committee of the said budget. The verbatim report and the video clip of the proceeding will prove that there was not body to the budget", he stated.
Ojougboh also alleged that the 2017 Delta state Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC) budget is nonexistent and challenged the board members from the Oil producing areas to produce the budget for their constituents to peruse, if his disclosure is false.
He called the executive council a lame duck and the state assemblymen “sleeping on their duties”, alleging Okowa had given himself an approval limit of N250 million.
"He then uses four memos to corner N1 billion for his personal use. The State Executive Council approved this fraud for him. The Commissioners do not have mandate for any approval whatsoever, not even for Ten Naira.
"Members of the state Assembly are aware of this fraud and will do nothing about it. Even in Ibori and Uduaghan administrations, the Governor’s approval limit was N50 Million Naira. We call on DTHA to quickly address these anomalies otherwise there will be no Delta in 2019", the former PDP chieftain submitted.
He also alleged more than N20 billion released by federal government to Delta under the Paris Club refund had vanished.
He said Okowa released half the fund as commission to a consultant, who is his family relative and converted the remaining half to foreign exchange to finance his ranch in Atlanta, Georgia, USA and his housing estate in South Africa.
On the recently divestment of the state government’s 60 equity holding in Delta Line transport company to a private operator God is Good Motors, Ojougboh wondered why the Okowa administration turned down the Nigeria Labour Congress’ bid of N2 billion to purchase 51% of Delta Line.
"But Okowa sold 60% of the company for N160 million, while owing workers 12 months salaries", he observed while calling on DTHA to annul the sales of the transport company and investigate the deal.
Efforts to reach the Chief Press Secretary to the governor and the state commissioner to react to the issues were unfruitful as calls put across to them returned unavailable, but a media aide to the governor and PDP chairman of Patani LGA, Godspower Amiuvwhu in rejoinder on his facebook page dismissed the claims as spurious and unfounded.
