Amaechi must account for 'wasted' N3trn revenue - Rivers Govt

River State Government has challenged the former governor of the state and incumbent Transport Minister, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, to a public debate on the three trillion revenue his administration purportedly received in eight years.
It described Ameachi’s government as the most wasteful in the history of Rivers State and asked him to explain the logic, financial cost, and social value of the N200billlion failed monorail project along Azikiwe Road, Port Harcourt.
Amaechi had recently criticised Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike for not completing the controversial project.
But the state government said it was ready to meet Amaechi for a debate on any platform, concerning projects abandoned by his administration.
Through the Commissioner for Information and Communication, Dr Austin Tam-George, the Wike administration charged Amaechi to come prepared with full explanations on other inflated contracts and unexecuted projects, such as the Greater Port Harcourt City project over which N200 billion was spent with nothing on the ground to justify the huge expenditure.
Tam-George also asked Mr Amaechi to give reasons for pulling down a standard, well equipped teaching hospital complete with doctors’ quarters along Hospital Road, Port Harcourt, leaving only weed to grow wildly in the space where the hospital once stood.
“By that thoughtless and disastrous action, Mr Rotimi Amaechi restricted healthcare access for thousands of people, particularly women and children, and may have contributed to the deaths of thousands of people in the past eight years”, the commissioner said.
“Will Rotimi Amaechi also explain how N80billion was spent on the Rainbow Town project, near Amadi Ama that was originally designated in 2010 to cost N40 billion? Why did that project remain uncompleted six years after?
“How about the billions of naira signed off by the state treasury in the name of the so-called Justice Karibi Whyte Specialist Hospital, which is a fictional project that does not exist on land, sea or anywhere in Rivers State?” the commissioner asked.