The Rivers State Chapter of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate the Monorail project embarked upon by the state government.<\/p>\n
Despite the assurances by Gov. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi and his political team that the monorail project is realizable, the ACN has continued to describe it as a white lie, deceptive and precarious.<\/p>\n
In a statement signed by it’s Spokesman, Jerry Needam, ACN said the call on EFCC to investigate the handlers of the Monorail project has become imperative following the sudden withdrawal of government’s partner in the project and the uneasy calm the development has generated.<\/p>\n
The party maintained that the monorail project is a product of blurred vision and complete waste of public funds,adding that in its effort to convince the Rivers people on the false frugality of the Amaechi administration, it has been one story or the other, often conflicting with earlier statements.<\/p>\n
The party further queried the rationale for abandoning the supposed equipments for the Monorail project at Onne port where they are incurring huge demurrage at the expense of Rivers State government if the claims of Amaechi’s Commissioner for Transport, George Tolofari were anything to go by.<\/p>\n
It’s regrettable that everything about the monorail project is shrouded in secrecy, ranging from the actual amount of the project, the name(s) of the contract partners, reasons for the withdrawal midway into the agreement, the reason for the snail speed trailing the work, the actual amount paid to property owners whose property were demolished to make way for the project as all these have raised too many unaddressed questions, complaints and even court threats,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the ACN noted.<\/p>\n
ACN insists that the Monorail project has only succeeded in creating jobs for political jobbers with little or no technical knowledge of such dream project but who flood the Board as members and technical crew.<\/p>\n
In the light of all this, the EFCC has no excuse not to embark on this mother of all investigations in the State,\u009d the party remarked.<\/p>\n
Recall that controversy has continued to trail the Monorail project. Last week, the ACN alleged that the Executive Director, Rivers State Bureau of Private-Partnerships, Mrs Anita Laz- Nwokeafor while answering questions on Bull’s Eye on 95.9 Cool FM, a live news and current affairs programme on Saturday, June 30, 2012, said before I came on board, there was no due process, no feasibility study and no proper planning of the Monorail Project.<\/p>\n
The development led to a war of words between Mrs Laz- Nwokeafor and the ACN, with the latter claiming that it had been vindicated with its earlier position that the project was not well thought out and cannot be realized, while the former refuted\u00c2\u00a0 the alleged statements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Rivers State Chapter of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate the Monorail project embarked upon by the state…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1106,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n