Imo State Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, has wielded the hammer on the directors-general, director of accounts and general managers of six state-owned parastatals over alleged financial impropriety.

This was announced yesterday in a statement signed by his Senior Special Assistant on Media, Sam Onwuemeodo. He said the immediate and indefinite suspension was in reaction to the misappropriation of funds, employment without waiver and other administrative irregularities by the affected public officials.

The affected parastatals are Imo Newspapers, Imo Library Board, Agricultural Development Project (ADP), Bureau for Procurement, Imo State Council for Arts and Culture and Imo Water Corporation.

In another development, Governor Okorocha has ordered street traders and roadside hawkers in Owerri to leave the roads and return to the markets for their businesses to enable his administration speed up road rehabilitation and sanitation in the state capital.

The governor gave the directive while inspecting the progress of work at the International Conference centre, and some other on-going projects in Owerri. He noted that renowned organisations such as the Nigeria Bar Association and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) have shown interest in using the International Conference Centre as venue for their events, stressing the need to expedite action on the rearrangement of both the round-about and the ongoing flyover project at the Warehouse junction.

Okorocha said when completed, there would be free-flow of traffic for motorists and other road users plying Orlu, Onitsha and Port Harcourt roads into Owerri. He called on all to give government the needed support and understanding to actualise its vision.

The governor regretted that hawkers in Owerri, especially at the Douglas and Bank roads, constitute a nuisance as well as endanger their lives in the course of their business transactions. “Hawkers have become so much concern in the state as they have turned deaf ears to the many appeals made to return them to the markets. They must be forced out because they have no business being on the roads selling their wares,” he insisted.

•Photo shows Governor Okorocha.

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