By Onyekachi Eze
Following an air of confusion trailing a loan facility allegedly borrowed by the Rebuild Imo led administration of Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, the accused team have come out to give clarity how it all transpired.
Against speculations that Chief Emeka Ihedioha administration took a loan in a tone of #3.5bn without properly accounting for it, the then Secretary to the State Government, Barr. Uche Onyeaguocha has debunked the news.
Doing justice to the claims, Onyeaguocha described it as a cheap blackmail to dent the person of Ihedioha and his administration.
He stated that the falsehood was not only peddled by “no do wells”, but as a bid to divert public attention from the inadequacies of the Senator Hope Uzodinma’s led 3R administration.
From Onyeaguocha’s statement, the Rebuild Imo Government neither took any loan of N3.5Bn from Fidelity bank nor acquired land from communities as claimed.
The statement from the ex SSG reads;
“There was the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) empowerment scheme known as the Accelerated Agricultural Development Scheme (AADS) and the Commercial Agricultural Credit (CAC) Scheme, which the Ihedioha administration sought to facilitate for the benefit of Imo Entrepreneurs.
“These schemes involve granting of soft loans to beneficiaries usually for financing agribusiness and micro-enterprises.
“As can easily be verified from the CBN website, these intervention schemes are implemented by the Apex bank through Deposit Money Banks. The role of a State government is only to facilitate and provide the necessary guarantee often by way of Irrevocable Standing Payment Order.
“As a development oriented government committed to youth empowerment and job creation, our administration sought to take advantage of these concessional facilities for Imo Youths and entrepreneurs.
“In order to make it transparent and accountable, characteristic of our administration, the government set up an inter-ministerial Committee chaired by the Commissioner for Finance.
“This Committee selected Fidelity Bank based on its agribusiness promotion track record as the bank to warehouse the funds following eventual disbursement by the CBN. The bank would also be involved in credit assessment and monitoring of projects to be financed with the facility from CBN.
“A visit to the CBN website shows that these schemes come with pre-conditions which include identification of viable projects as well as selection of beneficiaries whose names must be submitted to the CBN via the participating financial institution.
“Following due approval by the State Executive Council, the critical stage of project identification and selection of eligible beneficiaries were ongoing when the administration was wrongfully terminated.
“The process put in motion following the approval of Council was, therefore rendered inconclusive.
“Fidelity Bank can easily confirm that it never received any N3.5 billion from the CBN in favour of the government of Imo State.
“We encourage anyone who has evidence to the contrary to make it available to the public.
“The facts stated above can easily be verified from the Development Finance Department of the CBN”.
He however charged the present administration to seek guidance on how to complete the process for the benefit of Ndi Imo rather than resort to cheap blackmail.
