By Onyekachi Eze
The Imo State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission, ISOPADEC, is stinking with allegations of fraud and diversion as disturbing information about funds released to it continue to characterize affairs of the interventionist agency even as the authorities deny reports.
Trumpeta gathered that the grouse of the matter has to do with troubles associated with the non- payment of workers’ salaries allegedly attributed to diversion of funds meant to service the agency.
Trouble started in ISOPADEC when reports had it that youths and staff of the agency besieged the Accountant General’s office last week in demands for their June/July salaries and subventions.
The Accountant General, was accused of referring the protesters to their leaders in the Rescue Mission involving top shots from Ohaji/ Egbema and Oguta Areas.
Irked by the Imo AGs response, some of the aggrieved staffers narrated to newsmen that since the emergence of the present ISOPADEC Board six months ago, over two hundred and fifty million naira (N250,000,000) has been lodged into an account on monthly basis, believed to be operated solely by a top apostle of the Rescue Mission Government (names withheld) in the name of ISOPADEC subvention.
Furthermore, it was alleged to be opened during the previous management of the Boards, while little or nothing less than fifty million naira (N50,000,000) is being only received into the legitimate account of the agency monthly as subvention.
Similarly, the top government shot was accused of masterminding the activities going on and out of the agency, which the protesters claimed do not give the Rescue Mission Government a good name, rather it send negative signals to the developmental strides which should be on the high side.
Meanwhile, a high flying politician from the oil producing area and the Supervisory Commissioner, Ministry of Lands, Survey, Housing and Urban Planning, Uju Kingsley Chima has reacted to the ISOPADEC fund saga having held sway in the agency in the past.
In a press release made public by Uju’s Special Assistant on Media, Joe Chimezie, with caption “Re-Salary Fraud Rocks ISOPADEC, Another Failed Attempt to Blackmail Uju Kingsley Chima,” the DCOS clearly states that he is not a signatory to any ISOPADEC account and should not be distracted with the affairs of ISOPADEC.
The release states that during his stay as a Supervisor in ISOPADEC, he never collected salary or any form of fund or disbursement talk more of operating a secret account.
