Edo councils open to EFCC probe – Oshiomhole

Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, on Monday said he has welcomed the call by the state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party to the Economic Financial Crimes Commission to conduct a probe on the state local government account.

oshiomhole

The State Chairman of the party, Chief Dan Orbih, had, on Sunday, in a press briefing, called on the EFCC to investigate the operation of the LG funds, owing to the non-payment payment of salaries of the council workers.

Orbih had also challenged the governor to forfeit his security votes to enable the councils fulfil their financial obligation to the aggrieved employees.

But the Governor, in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Public Affairs, Prince Kassim Afegbua, urged the anti-graft agency to begin the probe starting from 1999 when the opposition party controlled the state government.

The governor said while the state under his leadership was driven by prudence in the management of resources, he was proud that achievements of his administration in the last six years “far supersede that of the PDP’s 10 years of governing the state.

He said, “We are pleased to state without fear or favour that we welcome the suggestion raised by Dan Orbih inviting the EFCC to look into the books and accounts of local government administration in the last six years. But such investigation should also cover the period between 1999 and 2008; such investigation should also look into the allocations and expenditures of the local government, their procurement procedures, who did the procurements, at what costs and the total accruals into the coffers of local government accounts across the state, within that period of 1999 to 2008.

“From such investigative effort, the public would be able to know who siphoned local government funds between the government of Comrade Oshiomhole and that governed by the PDP for 10 years. This should be the real challenge in the light of ongoing effort to sanitise the inherited rotten system from the PDP.”

The governor said that it would be interesting for Nigerians, if the PDP could publish all accruals to local governments between 1999 and 2008, “same way it published, inaccurately, the figures between 2008 and 2015.”

Edo councils open to EFCC probe – Oshiomhole