BENIN — EDO State government has dismissed allegation by the Publicity Secretary of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in the state, Mr. Godwin Erhahon that the state government had diverted a N3 billion World Bank funds meant for rural development, saying there is no iota of truth in the said report.
Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to Governor Lucky Igbinedion, Mr. Lucky Wasa said though the state government and the World Bank were into partnership geared towards road construction and rehabilitation in the state, no funds had been made available till date for those projects.
He noted that ordinarily, the government had no habit of joining issues with an opposition party on the pages of newspapers, especially the ANPP, the government was constrained to do so because of distortions of facts and pure fabrications in the said report.
The statement said: “For the avoidance of doubt, the following facts of the matter would reveal that the ANPP Publicity Secretary’s statement which the media report was based on is not only unduly mischievous, but lacks facts to convince anyone about the grandiose and ill-fated plans of the opposition party to cause disaffection and disunity in the state.
"For instance, Erhahon’s claims that the state government has received about N1.2 billion is absolute lie as the present administration since inception of 1999 has not received such amount from UNDP. This reveals the obnoxious intent of the Publicity Secretary in attempting to paint the government black and incite the citizenry against it.
"Secondly, the claims of the Publicity Secretary becomes glaringly laughable when he maintained that money was made available to the state government for the rehabilitation of Siluko road, Textile Mill Road junction, through Teachers’ House to Kilometer six while stressing that government did not only fail to carry out the projects, but went ahead to use an invoice of a mysterious construction company to retrieve the funds from the federal government”.
"His claims are not only lies but a figment of his imagination. It is expected that before federal government could reimburse such funds, Engineers in the Federal Ministry of Works would have visited and verify such claims. That this is the contrary, nullifies the nebulous and unsubstantiated allegations of ANPP in the state to thwart the progressive government of Peoples’s Democratic Party-led administration in Edo State."
