By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

Governor of Anambra State, Prof Chukwuma Soludo, has debunked an article alleging that the budget he submitted to the state House of Assembly was padded.

He described the article as handiwork of criminal elements displaced by his government.

The writer in the article titled, ”Budget padding scandal hits Anambra State Government” had said that thh budget contains outrageously inflated projectd by margins as wide as 300% in some ministries when compared to what former governir Willue Obiano spent.

He also said that the budget contains outrageously inflated projects by margins as wide as 300% in some ministries when compared with what Willie Obiano spent.

The article said in part: “To put it in proper perspective: The supposedly extravagant Gov Willie Obiano delivered each kilometer of road with N100m. But Gov Soludo has budgeted over N300m per kilometer of road.”

Responding in a statement tagged, “Losers and detractors” by the Press Secretary, Christian Aburime, Soludo described the alleged rumour peddlers as unknown gunmen who had metamorphosed to unknown writers.

He said: “They are those whose source of livelihood was government money and patronage as a result of free oil. Sadly it has stopped coming given the paucity of revenues coming from Abuja.

“Currently, to even fund infrastructural development, we would of course have to borrow until our internally generated revenue (IGR) is gotten to a point where we meet these obligations. In doing this, we owe it as a duty to Ndi Anambra to ensure that every penny of our borrowed funds are accounted for and deployed to building quality infrastructure, and not for consumption.

“We are moving to the next stage of making Anambra State a livable and prosperous smart mega city by confronting head-on, the infrastructural decay in our beloved state. The road infrastructure in our state is in such deplorable situation that I have declared a state of emergency on the road infrastructure with an unprecedented budget allocation of about 64% of the capital budget and an ambitious target of flagging off at least 220km of road as soon as the rains abate.

“With this ambitious programme and knowing fully that failure does not exist in our determined minds, the detractors are at loss and are raising the battle cry with the sole aim of trying to scuttle our determination with all manners of blackmail.

“They claimed that the Commissioner for Works refused to appear before the state Assembly to defend the budget. This again is the figment of the imagination of the unknown writers with the intent of creating rancour between the executive and the members of the house of Assembly.

“The Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure was, indeed, the first Commissioner to appear before the house committee on the first day of the budget defence being 29th of June, 2022 at about 10.00AM. This is on record and was captured by the press.

“On the cost of road per kilometer, it is funny that the “Unknown Writer” like his counterpart, the “unknown gunmen”, is using propaganda and deceit to hoodwink the unsuspecting public. How do you start talking about the cost of contract for roads currently being designed and contract not awarded? Very funny! Of course people always judge others by their own standards.

“Since the “unknown writer” made dubious comparisons to previous administrations, it is important that we place on record for the purposes of Ndi Anambra who employed us and to whom we are accountable, that the previous administrations awarded roads with the cost per kilometer varying from above one billion naira per kilometer to a little over two hundred million naira per kilometer when diesel was about N120 per litre and asphalt was about N18,000 per ton. Of course, cost per kilometer depends on several factors including the topography, soil texture, design, stone base or just on laterite, overall quality, etc.”

He gave instances of the roads awarded by his predecessors and their costs per kilometer, which include but not limited to: Awkuzu-Nteje-Umueri Airport Road

Length of road 5.2Km Date awarded: 2015. Award Sum: N6,550,000,000.00 Cost Per Kilometer: N1,259,615,384.61.Construction of Section 2 Nmiata- Nzam Road Lenght of Road: 10.5km.

Soludo further said: "The misinformation in the referenced article above should evoke pity for the purveyors in the light of the manifest ignorance boldly couriered in every paragraph of the hasty piece of distraction. Bad as it is, no credible reporter has signed this off, establishing it for what it is; lazy propaganda.

“For clarity, it is important we state that we are not oblivious of the diversionary antics of those whose lucrative criminal enterprise is being smoked out by our renewed fight against all forms criminality in the state, housed in various camps and bushes perpetrating heinous crimes.”

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