Abia State Government has insisted that contrary to some insinuations, the state did not at any time invest in the Aba Geometric Power Project.
Abia Government said this while disputing an alleged claim by the spokesperson of the former administration that the state invested $5 million in the Geometric Power Project which was commissioned last Monday by Vice President Kashim Shettima.
The spokesperson had contended that as a result of the investment, Abia State should be entitled five percent share in the power project.
However, Abia Commissioner for Information and Culture, Mr Okey Kanu and Special Adviser to the incumbent Governor Alex Otti on Media and Publicity, Mr Ferdinand Ekeoma disputed the claim.
Kanu told journalists that there is no existing financial commitment by the previous administration to the Geometric Power Project.
He spoke on Tuesday during a press briefing on the outcome of the State Executive Council at the Government House, Umuahia.
He said that the State Government had received a lot of commendation from people for its support towards the inauguration of the Geometric Power Project.
According to him, the development had equally raised claims from certain quarters that the previous administration made some investments in the project for the state government.
Kanu said that the government worked with facts and not assumptions, and added that during the handover the present administration did not receive any document that confirmed the claims.
He said: “Geometric Power Plant is a private sector led investment company and you don’t speak about things that don’t exist
“At the point of handover from the previous administration to this administration, I don’t think there is any existence of financial commitment on the part of the state in the Geometric Power Plant.
“Like I said we don’t need to speak to something that doesn’t exist,”
On his part, Ekeoma said that the present administration did not have any documents that confirmed that the government during the previous administration made a financial commitment to the project.
“I have heard from the spokesperson of the former government claim that there was an agreement, of course, we have been told that the state invested $5 million in geometric which gave them the opportunity to own five per cent equity share.
“At a different occasion, a former commissioner of Information during the previous administration claimed that a certain amount was paid and not the entire amount.
“That gave the Chairman of Geometric the premise to say what he said a few days ago.
“If you fulfilled your own side of the agreement it would give you the opportunity to take the said equity.
“As long as we don’t have any documents what it means is that such does not exist,” he added.
Ekeoma said that it would be pleasing to see that something was invested in a multibillion naira project in the name of the state.
According to him, it would be a welcome development to know that the government was inheriting something substantial from the previous administration.
“We are not dismissing what the former government said but all we are saying is that we would need to have a document.
“You cannot go to geometric and begin to claim you did so and so thing, when in actual sense you have nothing to show for it,” Ekeoma said.
Credit: NAN
