Joe Effiong, Uyo
Akwa Ibom State government has vowed to recover all money paid to contractors whose contracts were later revoked because of poor performance.
The state government has revoked several road contracts which the contractors, mostly indigenous ones were said to have performed below expectation especially in Oruk Anam and Ini local government areas, after pocketing huge sums of money.
The state Commissioner for Works, Mr Ephraim Inyang, told our correspondent in Uyo that the state government would do everything within the law to recover every kobo paid to the contractors whose poor performances led to the revocation of their contracts.
“Give me the next two weeks, you will hear what we are going to do. Any contractor who has taken the money without doing a good job, is going to have it rough with us; I am readily available for them. We will recover the money and Akwa Ibom people will be happy for it.
“Nobody will take the state money. I will go to any length to recover the state money, but I won’t give you my secret code because I’m going to come out smoking badly.
“No contractor would use my signature to steal the money because I’m lucky. You can’t come out and say you shared the money with me because I don’t take any money from any contractor; and then if you have not done the work, the money should go back to the treasury. The one we are told was paid in error to one of the contractors, the money has been blocked by the EFCC.
“You can’t spend it; we will come out to recover the money very soon and it will be made public; the money, the quality of job they did, will be made public. We will not go beyond 2015. The account that Governor Udom Emmanuel has to give to the people is from July 2015 when he posted me here, till, God giving us life, when the government terminates.
“So for now, it’s July 2015 till date. Nobody should ask us to go look for the money of the other era. But if any anybody comes to the public place to lie, I will put the records right,” Mr Inyang threatened.
He said there are mixed feelings in Akwa Ibom State government at the moment depending on the activities of government officials and other stakeholders with regard to their role in the governor’s re-election.
“Those who worked sincerely for Udom to be re-elected as governor are celebrating at the moment; those who played double are afraid of what will happen. If you worked sincerely, you don’t have an issue because whoever we are and whatever we do, the people know. And so if you didn’t work sincerely, it is payback time.
“You cannot have your cake and eat it. So if you worked, good luck to you. If you did not, is sorry for you.”
Inyang said politicians are people who take risks rightly or wrongly and can be pretending to work for someone while their loyalty is with another.
“It is not a question of mole; moles don’t go for a meeting. What I’m saying is that you cannot ascertain that in your father’s house when you call for a family meeting everybody agrees. Here you are talking about a state with 31 LGAs with sub-tribal groups like Ibibio, Oron, Annang; everyone cannot agree at once.
“Those who sincerely work for this system to come back to government, have reasons to be joyous in their heart. There is nothing as interesting as taking part in a venture that most people underrated and becoming a success,” the commissioner said.