Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi has again reiterated<\/p>\n
that as governor of Rivers State for eight years, he was transparent and
\ndid not embezzle money meant for the people.
\nAmaechi said, as governor, he did not receive over N3.trillion naira as
\nalleged by his successor, Nyesom Wike.<\/p>\n
Amaechi made the clarification at a stakeholders’ forum on corruption
\norganised by the Federal Ministry of Justice in Abuja, Thursday.<\/p>\n
He also said Rivers State became the first to implement the Bureau of
\nPublic Procurement (BPP) act in Nigeria during his tenure as governor of
\nthe State.<\/p>\n
According to Amaechi, \u201cIf you had followed the Rivers State government
\nwhen I was governor, we were the first state to introduce the Public
\nProcurement Law in the country. The State cabinet used to call the
\nDirector General of Public Procurement in the state as an alternative
\ngovernor, that they wanted an amendment to that law. The reason they
\nwanted amendment is that he (DG) refused to increase the threshold to one
\nhundred million naira, per ministry, instead he reduced it to ten million
\nnaira.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a battle with him (DG BPE) and the world bank who insisted that we
\nshould not go for an amendment but should persuade him to increase the
\nthreshold. I remember the cabinet tried to go to court against him and I
\nremember that he was also trying to go to court against Commissioners. In
\nfact, the procurement DG wrote a memo that I felt was very incriminating
\nrequesting that since the law requires the governor to take any
\ncommissioner who doesn\u2019t comply with the public procurement law to court,
\nI should please take the commissioner of education to court for not
\ncomplying… Everybody in the cabinet felt that he was an alternative
\ngovernor, they felt that he was slowing the process\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
Amaechi said transparency in the use of public funds was key to his
\nadministration as governor, noting that the Rivers community was fully
\nbriefed periodically on how funds were been utilised.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin that period we insisted on engaging the indigenous communities on
\nhow much we received and how we spent the money. That is why I feel that
\nafter this ministerial appointment, I should do everything possible to
\nstay away from government because in spite of all the forms of
\ntransparency I introduced in government, one man could begin to tell lies
\nto Nigerians and Nigerians believe him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe governor of Rivers State said I squandered N3trillion naira. I did
\nnot receive up to N1.8 trillion naira as governor both from IGR and funds
\nfrom federal allocation. So, how could I have squandered money I did not
\neven receive in the first place? You can see the politics of lies and
\nlies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Minister of Transportation, I run an open and transparent system. I
\nbelieve in name and shame. What name and shame does is, if you name and
\nshame those of them who don\u2019t have conscience they won\u2019t come to public
\nfunctions. I do have conscience. In fact, it was the word corruption that
\nbrought me to this occasion because I wanted to see who will get up and
\nsay to me, \u2018this is evidence that you are corrupt.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went to court against the Rivers State government on their allegation
\nof corruption against me. The Court of Appeal said, produce that document
\nthat found this man (Amaechi) guilty of those crimes and up till today he
\n(Wike) has not produced it,” Amaechi said.<\/p>\n
The Transport Minister also told the audience to draw closer to
\ngovernment, pay more attention and engage political appointees to an open
\ngovernment.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease come to all of us in government, all the ministers in government
\nand engage us on open government. For me, for ministry of transportation
\nany information you want please write to us we will not only give you, we
\nwill give you on time. This is because all of us that have become
\nministers have been entrusted by the President. His first policy is
\ncorruption; the second one is economic development. We have been appointed
\nby the President to go and do those following things to ensure that there
\nis fund that we save from the people\u2019s money to develop the community and
\nthe community we have is the Nigerian community.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndeed you are our leaders, we are here by the grace of God and by your
\ngrace and we believe that you have the right to ask questions. We believe
\nthat you have the right to demand accountability from ministers. We
\nbelieve that nobody has the right to rise from just being an ordinary
\ngraduate of a university by courtesy of holding public office, he now owns
\nmansions, cars\u2026\u201d Amaechi stated.<\/p>\n
Earlier, in his speech the Attorney General and Minister of Justice
\nAbubakar Malami said, \u201c As you are all aware, President Buhari made
\nfighting corruption one of the pillars of this administration\u2019s policy.
\nSince assuming office, every effort has been made to build on and expand
\non what was initiated by previous governments. Amongst these key
\npriorities is the need to recover stolen funds and to pay back to the
\nNigerian society what they have lost to corruption.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou may recall that during the London Anti-Corruption Summit, President
\nMuhammadu Buhari presented a country statement on actions that would be
\nimplemented by the government of Nigeria on anti-corruption reforms.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe foregoing establishes the fact that Nigeria has always appreciated
\nthe importance of open government as a means of ensuring transparency and
\naccountability in conduct of government business. It is the current
\nadministration\u2019s position that commitment to the promotion of open
\ngovernment in Nigeria would resonate strongly with the message of \u201cchange\u201d
\nthat the new administration represents,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi has again reiterated that as governor of Rivers State for eight years, he was transparent and did not embezzle money meant for the people.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n