The member representing Ezinihite Mbaise Constituency in Imo State House of Assembly, Hon Dr Obioma Ekennia has refuted the allegation leveled against him as having collected the sum of N144m (One hundred and forty four million naira) from contractors handling some roads projects in the council area.
Speaking to newsmen at his home town, Hon Ekennia lamented that he had the slight hint of the rumour before it spread like fire but waved it as unnecessary grape vine rumours since he knew that nothing like that ever transpired between him and the contractors.
He pointed out that his duty is to make laws that will better the plights of his constituents but was involved as a committee member that will determine roads to be done since he hails from the council area. Dr Ekennia maintained that he only voiced out whenever he noticed an error in the course of executing the job by the contractors.
Although, the member representing Ezinitte Mbaise in the Legislative House had contractors and his constituents at the venue of the briefing, he harped that his aim was to exonerate himself from such monetary scam before the people he is representing, adding that keeping his constituents in the dark when an issue that bothers on misappropriation of fund is involved is not proper since he is dully elected to represent them, thus, owe it as a duty to render account of his stewardship to them.
However, because the forum was interactive, almost all the contractors working in the council were present and they attested that they have not done any type of monetary lobbying with the honourable member. Most of them were fuming that their contract was terminated after commencement while new contractors kept surfacing at regular interval with approval letter from the Honourable Commissioner for Public Utility, Public Safety and Youth Empowerment, Dr Ifeanyu Nwachukwu, thus, hanging the completion and fate of many contractors on the scale of uncertainty. Some of the contractors who came with their papers were lamenting that almost all of them who initially started the job are on the verge of loosing out due to the emergence of new contractors who also were given papers from the Commissioner for Public Utilities, authenticating their contract.
After the lengthy explanations given by many contractors, Hon. Ekennia told his audience that he had never collected a dime from any contractor, that the monetary scam was deliberately fashioned to damage his image. He used the forum to urge the public to disregard such allegation for it never transpired attesting that he knows that he has been in the political scene but has not learnt to malign anybody for a cheap popularity or to score a political goal. He finally urged the general public to disregard the rumour for it was deliberately fabricated to prop his name.
Conversely, from the documents made available to the press, the mobilization fund so far given to eight contractors who are handling the 15km road in the LGA summed about N61.4m while Hon Ekennia was alleged to have collected the sum of N144m from the contractors.
