N53m Demand Nominees Screening

 

Alleged inability of political appointees in Imo State to collectively pay a levy of N53 million imposed on them by the House of Assembly lawmakers has stalled their screening.
It was gathered yesterday that the House’s Ad-hoc Committee set up to screen commissioners and council transition chairmen-nominees forwarded to the House by Governor Rochas Okorocha more than two weeks ago suspended the screening exercise indefinitely because the appointees were unable to pay N2 million and N1 million respectively, our investigation revealed.


According to our source, the action of the lawmakers may not be unconnected with Governor Okorocha’s refusal to pay their allowances as well as provide them with new vehicles since their inauguration last June.

The source, who pleaded anonymity, disclosed that Governor Okorocha’s attempt to resolve the issue during his recent meeting with members and leadership of the Assembly at Government House hit a brick wall, as the legislators stuck to their guns, insisting on collecting the imposed levy.
Also, one of the transition committee chairmennominees, who did not want his name mentioned, said he has been running helterskelter to source the N1 million demanded by members of the Assembly.
Said he: “Since the House members have decided that for any transition committee chairman-nominee to be screened, he must pay N1 million, I have been running around to raise the money after the intervention of the governor failed.”

But in a swift reaction, Hon. Ozuruigbo denied the allegation, saying it was a mere rumour, as there was no time the ad hoc committee of the House demanded any money as a precondition for screening nominees. “It is a mere rumour because the screening committee has never requested money from any of the nominees.

We have already screened six of them and what has stalled the screening of other nominees is the deluge of petitions received by the committee; at our plenary, the matter was raised and it was decided that the committee should look into all serious petitions, while frivolous ones should be dismissed,” he stated.

He further disclosed that the House leadership had also met with Governor Okorocha on petitions against some of the nominees, particularly those accused of being ex-convicts.
“We have even met with the governor to discuss some of the weighty allegations against some of the nominees particularly those accused of being ex-convicts because we did not want to embarrass the governor.
So, the allegation that the ad hoc committee had demanded money from the nominees is totally false,” he added.

Nationalmirror