Group cries out against Okorocha’s alleged plan to spend N850m on Christmas tree

Just as the cry by Imo indigenes and some other Nigerians against South African President Jacob Zuma’s statute and the N500 million allegedly spent in erecting it is yet to simmer down, the state Governor Rochas Okorocha, has again been accused of planning to spend a whooping N850 million on Christmas trees.

A socio-political group, G42 Imo Liberation Forum, which raised this alarm in a statement on Saturday, lamented Okorocha’s “waste of tax payers’ money” on frivolities while “civil servants and pensioners in the state are being owed several months’ arrears of salary and other entitlements”.

In statement by G42 director of communications, Dr. Walter Duru, the group claimed, that Okorocha has persistently spent the state’s meager resources on misplaced priority. It lamented that the government of the state has been insensitive to the lives of residents in the state that are being ravaged by poverty.

“The attention of G-42 Imo Liberation Forum has been drawn to an alleged plan by the Imo State Government under the leadership of Chief Rochas Okorocha to spend about N850 million on a meaningless tree ahead of the 2017 Christmas celebration.

“This is coming at a time civil servants and pensioners in the state are being owed several months’ arrears of salary and other entitlements; while poverty is at its highest level in the history of the state.

“The situation is made worst by the fact that the dust raised by the over N500 million allegedly spent in the building of a statue for the President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma is yet to settle.

“We refuse to treat this as mere speculation as history has shown that this is not far from the style of the present administration in the state; a government that is not accountable to anyone and is run in utmost secrecy.

“The government must tell Imo people how much it actually spent on erecting the ridiculous Jacob Zuma statue and others there-in, as well as the said Christmas tree.

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“The G-42 Imo Liberation Forum, a socio-political group in the state sees this as the highest level of insensitivity, misplaced priority and share waste of the people’s resources and hereby condemns it.

“The present APC-led government must realize that it is holding the people’s resources on trust and therefore accountable to the people. This administration has treated Imo people with so much disrespect and disdain that we can no longer fold our arms to allow this anomaly to continue.

“We therefore call on the state government to discontinue the wanton waste of the peoples’ resources and invest in areas that are beneficial to majority of the citizens.”

 

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