The Akwa Ibom state government has abandoned the Afaha Obong community erosion control project after the state had allocated the sum of ₦280 million to it in a period of four years.
The state under the deal, in the year 2020, allocated the sum of ₦50 million to the project. Although the allocation was done and monies released, nothing was done on the project, and that was even as the sum of ₦100 million was already allocated for the same project in 2019.
Worse still, in the previous years, the project had ₦50 million allocations in 2018 and ₦80 million in 2017.
Although the total sum of ₦280 million was allocated to the project in four years and monies were released, the Akwa-Ibom state government has since abandoned the project with no sign of work taking place on the site.
Udeme, a public accountability organization that visited the project site, confirmed that the project has since been abandoned and grasses have taken over the area with the erosion in a worse condition.
Worse still, there is no project signpost in the area, which is an indicator showing the state has not attempted to award the contract of the erosion control project to any company despite the huge sum that has since gone into it.
And, if there is any contract to that effect, it is not known to any members of the community residents and was secretly carried out.
However, a local Non-Governmental Organisation that works in the community while speaking to MAWA Foundation accused the Akwa-Ibom state government and its officials of corruption, adding that there are huge numbers of abandoned projects across communities in the state which the government had allocated and released money for them, while the funds were diverted by the state officials.
“There is a huge corruption going on in Akwa-Ibom state, they are not interested in governance but in corruption, move around the communities and speak to residents, you will discover huge corruption taking place in projects execution”, he said.
MAWA Foundation could not immediately reach out to the Akwa-Ibom state government for a response.
Credit: Udeme