By Bisola Adeyemo
Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki yesterday announced that the N30billion Benin stormwater project said to have been executed by the previous administration is fake.
Obaseki stated this while inspecting the Textile Mill Road catchment of the project in Benin City.
According to the Guardian, Obaseki stated that the stormwater project, claimed by the previous administration, was designed not to work for the benefit of the Edo people, assuring the people of Edo state that his administration will ensure scrutiny of the project and recover all the money stolen through it.
“The stormwater project was a fraud. It was a contract to defraud Edo people.
“From what I see in this catchment area, the project was never designed to take water away from the area. The area was never drained.
“You can see the level of what we are doing now compared with what the previous administration did,” he said.
He said: “It is an almost two-meter difference. There is no way you can drain water from a low land into higher ground.
“We say we have experts and paid over N30billion for this project.
“The person that supervised this project today calls himself a minister supervising bigger projects for the Federal Government. This is not acceptable.”
He added that the previous administration spent huge sums of money on the water storm project claiming that on completion, it would drain water from the area and restore the property of Edo people resident in the area.
He pointed out that his administration had done a greater job with less amount of money, and the same administration would do everything possible to drain the catchment area and restore life to the people.
“They spent N30billion claiming that they want to take away the suffering of Edo people, de-flood the area and restore the value of people’s property, but see what has happened to the project for five years.”
“I don’t like probes, but this time, we have to set up a panel to get the facts of what really happened.
“We can’t ignore such a huge amount of money.
“People must be made to account for their time in government,” he added.
