Rivers State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC, on Saturday alleged that the state governor, Ezebunwo Nyesom Wike is trying to secure another N10 billion loan from banks under the pretence of using it for infrastructural development.
In a statement issued in Port Harcourt by the party’s Publicity Secretary, Chris Finebone, the party said it got wind of Wike’s latest move through a socio-political organization, the Rivers Progressives Forum, RPF, that alleged that the governor had written several letters to banks, mounting pressure on them to grant his requests.
The statement reads, “This development was brought to the attention of the APC by the Rivers Progressive Forum (RPF), an organisation that pursues the advancement of Good Governance in Rivers State and the advancement of the welfare of Rivers people.
“The APC is shocked that despite the outcry against the incessant borrowing by the Wike-led administration in Rivers State, this time around the governor and his people have written, pressurising banks to ‘waive all legal and regulatory provisions designed to prevent abuse of the process and the use of the State’s Monthly Excess Crude Account allocation as collateral.
“The Rivers State Government is defying all known decency in financial discipline by particularly asking the banks for a waiver of the State Fiscal Responsibility Laws amongst others. The APC is happy that the RPF has in its possession and is about to publish copies of the rogue letters written by the Wike government to banks requesting for the loan and pressurising them for various waivers in what the RPF refers to as ‘borrowing Rivers people into perpetual penury.”
