The PDP in Edo has called for the setting up of a probe panel to investigate the N30 billion Benin water project.
The Chairman of the PDP in Edo, Chief Dan Orbih, made the call at a news conference in Benin on Tuesday.
Orbih said the call for a probe was imperative to end the blame game between the immediate past governor of the state, Mr Adams Oshiomhole, and his predecessor, Mr Godwin Obaseki, on the failure of the project.
Describing the project as a disaster and a failed project, the party stalwart told Obaseki to stop the blame game and apologise to Edo people on the failure of the project.
He noted that it was Obaseki as chairman of the Edo State Economic Team under Oshiomhole, who facilitated the N30 billion bond for the project at the inception of Oshiomhole’s first tenure.
Orbih said the Obaseki administration had no reason to engage in blame game, noting that a probe panel would help to unravel if it was right for Afri-Invest, a company allegedly owned by Obaseki, to have been paid for facilitating the bond.
He noted that more worrisome was the government’s declaration on Sept. 30 that it would require additional N150 billion to complete the project in its planned 30- year development plan.
The PDP chieftain said it was the duty of government to execute projects that would be in the best interest of the populace.
He described as unjustifiable, Obaseki’s call for the probe of the failed N20 billion NDDC road projects in the state, which he said, were responsible for recurring flooding in the state.
According to him, there is need to change the narrative in the state, to make the people feel the impact of good governance.
A correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) who visited the primary water storm project site at Igbinadua and Powerline in the Upper Siluko area of the state capital, reports that work had not been done at the project site for long.
However, the state’s Commissioner for Environment and Sustainability, Ms Omua Alonge Oni-Okpaku, claimed that the project was already 70 per cent completed. (NAN)
