Press Release Alex Otti's lies: Abia under Ikpeazu is open for probe

The attention of the Abia State Governor, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu,
has been drawn to the baseless and unintelligent allegations
made by Mr Alex Otti, the defeated 2015 governorship
candidate of the crisis riddled All Progressive Grand Alliance
(APGA) party in Abia State, with regards to the management of
the CBN bailout and Paris Club refund facilities to the state.

Ordinarily, clueless allegations from a character like Otti does
not deserve any response, but for the sake of members of the
public, who may be misled by the federal government
acclaimed dangerous misinformer, it is necessary to state the
facts.


Assuming without conceding that Oti is smart, as a supposed
former bank chief, it should be taken for granted that he will
be a master of financial numbers. But since he started his
desperate quest to become Abia State Governor by all means
with the objective of clothing himself with underserved
immunity from prosecution, he has serially exposed himself at
the state and national level as a man who thinks he knows but
actually know nothing about financial numbers.


For the records and without mincing words, Governor Okezie
Ikpeazu is open to any probe of his administration's
management of the state's financial resources by any
constituted authority of the state or federal government. Mr
Otti is therefore enjoined to feel free to visit any relevant
institution and offer information on any aspect of the
management of Abia resources under Governor Okezie
Ikpeazu.


It is also hoped that Mr Otti will publicly encourage the
auditors of Diamond Bank Plc to publish detailed audit reports
of the bank covering the period that he served as Managing
Director and the year after. The public needs to know the
sources of the operational losses that were masked through
asset revaluation and other smart accounting tricks.


A review of the contents of the document he circulated
reveals a man who is either plain ignorant or full of deceit, as
the press release contained outright lies, half-truths,
contradictions and conjectures.


Mr Otti was part of the status quo he derided in Abia from
1999-2015 and obviously while he benefitted from the system
he forgot to organize press conferences to call for a probe of
the state's account, including the Federal Allocation
Committee (FAAC) account that he ensured was moved to
Diamond Bank when he became the MD. Little wonder Alex
Otti will easily forget the N2bn loan he ill advisedly arranged
for MOCERAM Umuahia that later became a burden on the
succeeding administration while the factory remains moribund
to date. Can Otti honestly claim not to be part of what he
pontifically described as "reign of absolutism"


 given his close
association with governments in power in the state before
2015? May he should show the world his original PDP
membership card so that the date it was issued will become
public knowledge.


At no point did the Governor Ikpeazu administration publicly
claim that it needed only N6b to clear salary, pensions and
gratuities outstanding in the state. Rather it is a matter of
public record which can be verified from Central Bank of
Nigeria (CBN) and Debt Management Office (DMO) of the
presidency that the documents submitted by Abia State
Government in lieu of the request for bailout indicated a
requirement of N38b to clear all the outstanding as at October
2015.


 Only N14.2b was approved for the state. It is also public
knowledge that when the facility was received the state
government transparently set up a committee dominated by
Labour leaders in the state to allocate all the resources to the
payment of some of the outstanding salaries and pensions.


Unlike other states, ICPC and Labour leaders reviewed the
application of the facility and commended the Government of
Dr Okezie Ikpeazu for prudently managing the bail out loan
without diverting any portion to competing needs.


To date, the Government of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu has not
borrowed a single kobo from any commercial bank in Nigeria.
If indeed Mr Otti is not rusty with. banking skills and processes
he can easily verify this fact from the CBN and DMO. In any
case, states have long been stopped from borrowing from
commercial banks at the prevailing double digits interest rates,


especially for the purpose of paying salaries. Only Mr Otti, the
self styled astute banker, seem not to know this and hence he
continues to dish out lies which accounted for his failed
Governorship run as Abians saw through his politics of deceit.
With regards to the approval from the Abia State House of
Assembly to borrow N30b, the Ikpeazu administration never
accessed those funds to date. We challenge Mr Otti to publish
the name(s) of the local bank that availed the facility to the
state government or shut up.



It is common knowledge that Nigeria is in recession and even
Otti has written ill informed articles to the Federal Government
on how the exit recession. In one of his recent articles, the
managers of the national economy described his article as
"dangerous misinformation"


 and queried his knowledge of
financial matters by asking him "are you for real"? It is this
same Alex Otti that is now engaged in spreading further
misinformation against the Abia State Government.
The primary effect of the current economic situation in the
country is that revenue inflows to the states from federal
revenue receipts have fallen much below wage bill level for
many states, including Abia State, for most of the past 22
months. At a particular period the state wage bill hovered
around N2.7b with FAAC receipts at between N1.6b and N2b
monthly.



Acclaimed misinformer, Mr Otti, wrote that Abia State
Government received N5.3b Paris fund refund and Mr Obinna
Oriaku told the citizens that he needed N700m to clear
outstanding salaries and pensions. While the statement is
expected from an unreal character who spreads
misinformation as a hobby, it is important to state that when
the state received the first tranche of Paris Club refunds
totaling N10.6b, the Governor approached the state house of
assembly to approve the investment of 50% of the funds on
outstanding salaries, as suggested by the presidency, with the
remaining 50% allocated to infrastructure development
projects. It was on that basis that the state house of assembly
approved the following expenditure in December 2016. The
details are as follows: N5.3 billion on Salary arrears and
pensions, N1.7 billion for road construction projects, N2.5
billion on bridges, N685 million on Hospital projects and N200
million for street lighting projects.



Labour leaders later approached the Governor to add N700m
to the allocated N5.3b to ensure that the available funds are
spread to more units of the state's civil service, and the
Governor graciously accepted. At no time did either Labour or
the Commissioner for Finance claim that the N700m was what
was needed to clear all outstanding.



When the state applied for the second tranche of Paris club
refunds, it was calculated that based on verifiable figures the
state will receive a minimum of N15b. Given the available
data that showed that outstanding salary and pensions stood
at around N13b, the Governor who was eager and committed
to paying off all workers outstanding declared without
prompting that once the inflows, expected before end of July
2017, is received his government will clear all the outstanding
salaries and pensions.



Sadly, the Federal Government only released N5.715b to Abia
State with the balance still expected. Yet eager to do the
greatest good to the greatest number of workers, Governor
Okezie Ikpeazu directed the Labour-dominated committee to
apply all the received money to payment of salary and pension
arrears. Whereas the federal government recommended that
states apply 70% to salary/pension outstanding and 30% to
infrastructure development projects.


As at today, all the Ministries, Departments and Agencies
(MDA) in Abia State, constituting more than 70% of the state
workforce, have received July salaries. Given that we are
currently in August, it should be noted that more than 70% of
the state's workforce are 100% on salaries.


Yet there are still
challenges that were not met with the received funds. The
already issued payment mandates were not enough to cover
the following salary arrears within the state workforce: primary
school teachers still have 2 months salary outstanding while
secondary schools teachers have 3 months. Local Government
workers have 2 months outstanding with 5 months for
pensioners while state pensioners have 6 months outstanding.



While the Governor is concerned about the yet to be cleared
salary and pension backlogs, some of which originated from
1999-2002 period, he is mindful of the need to avoid
borrowing from commercial banks to clear the outstanding.


The era of Banker Alex Otti showing up at government houses
to hoodwink states into borrowing from commercial banks at
high interest rates is gone. The Government of Dr Okezie
Ikpeazu will continue to innovate to tackle the issue of
outstanding salaries with a view to ensuring that all Abia
workers are up to date with salaries and pensions without
exception.


With regards to the AfDB infrastructure development loan of
$200m, the negotiation for the facility preceded the current
administration. Due to the need to renew infrastructure across
the state to support improved production and the integrated
development agenda of the current administration, the
government decided to vigorously pursue the realization of the
facility which has less than 1% interest rate with 10 years
moratorium.


It was part of the national borrowing plan of the
federal government and we are glad that regardless of the
efforts of Otti and others who only think politics, the National
Assembly approved the borrowing after reviewing our
presentation that included well stated repayment plans.


Contrary to what our misinformation specialist stated, AfDB
will manage the allocation and disbursement of the funds
through their accredited contractors that are expected to
emerge using transparent international bidding processes.


There is therefore zero chance of mismanagement of the fund
which will be devoted to road infrastructure, sanitation and
erosion control projects across the state.
To underline the fabled hypocrisy of Mr Otti, it is important at
this time to mention that during the 2015 campaign rounds,


candidate Alex Otti told members of Aba Chamber of
commerce that he has obtained international loan of $100b to
invest in Aba Urban renewal projects alone. While we knew at
the time that it was one of his many lies aimed at hoodwinking
the electorate, it is laughable that it is same Otti that is now
against obtaining a facility of $200m to do much more across
the state.


To date, the Ikpeazu administration has commissioned 26
roads in the state within the last 24 months and is currently at
65 other road construction sites spread across the state. The
Government is speedily constructing the first interchange
(flyover) at Osisioma Aba. 2 bridges have been delivered with
new hospitals, classroom blocks and buildings as well as other
human capacity development projects.
Finally, the Government led by Governor Okezie is not afraid of
any probe or oversight by any agency of state and our books
are open for inspection.


We hope that Mr Alex Otti will also
accept a holistic probe of his activities at First and Diamond
Bank so as to show himself fit and proper person to make
allegations bothering on corruption and financial
mismanagement. A good starting point will be for him to
authorize the publication of the detailed internal and external
audit reports of Diamond Bank for the years covering 2013,


2014 and 2015. After all he who goes to equity must go with
clean hands and clean conscience.
Enyinnaya Appolos
Chief Press Secretary to the Governor
16/08/2017