Secret Reporters No place to hide
Secret Reporters
Looting and pilferage seem to be the order of the day in the Governor Ifeanyi Authur Okowa’s led Delta State government as it seems to take maximum advantage of every opportunity that presents itself to pillage the State’s resources not sparing the use of the promotion of the new Delta State logo as a decoy to facilitate this malfeasance.
In a memo dated October 2018 sent by the immediate past Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Hon. Festus Ovie Agas, to the Governor; SecretReporters gathered that following the unveiling of the new logo for the State during its 25th anniversary, Mr Okowa approved the use of a whopping N98,911,250 (Ninety-Eight Million Nine Hundred and Eleven Thousand Two Hundred and Fifty Naira) for the design and production of 25,000 pieces of textile wax prints just to display the newly unveiled logo that was to be distributed as souvenirs.
The memo which was addressed to the state Governor Ifeanyi Okowa by the erstwhile SSG showed that the amount which was sourced from Head 413A, sub-Head B11-Gifts and Donations in the 2018 Approved Budget had N3,856 (Three Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty-Six Naira) listed as the cost of production per unit when the product is not a gift to Deltans.
However, experts in the field of textile wax prints production described the cost as astronomical, stating that the amount earmarked for the production will be enough to produce about 100,000 quality textile wax with the logo fully displayed.
Poised on milking more from the state’s treasury using the logo which was unveiled about two years ago as cover, the State Government without batting an eye infused another N2,500,000 (Two Million Five Hundred Thousand Naira) for the provision of handling charge at N100,000 (One Hundred Thousand Naira) per Local government area into the already over-bloated amount.
Sources confided in SecretReporters that despite the monstrous amount sunk into the mass production of the textile wax prints, no sightings of it has been seen in any local government or around the State, apart from few government premises which may have indicated that it was just a charade to waste public funds.
When contacted, the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr Olisa Ifeajika in his usual “I don’t know” stance stated that he has no knowledge of the textile wax prints done by the erstwhile SSG as he was not the CPS at that time.
