Re: Paris Club Fund

By NIGER DELTA COALITION FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE (NDCGG)
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A popular African proverb says “chop your own firewood and it will warm you twice”. Mr. Richard Kpodoh, - a self-acclaimed elder of the All Progressive Congress, APC, Bayelsa State appears not to hearken to this simply but witty saying. Mr. Richard Perekeme Kpodoh is not strange in the Niger Delta for his nuisance value. It was he who misadvised the immediate past administration on how to tackle the security issues of Bayelsa State. He was instrumental to the establishment of the notorious killer outfit “Operation Famou Tangbe” which appropriated hundreds of millions on a Monthly basis for killing young, innocent people of Bayelsa State until the evil outfit was disbanded.

Like a vulture searching for rotten food, Kpodoh is at his familiar turf again; meet some people, especially opposition elements, spew out some worthless piece of propaganda, discredit some scintillating characters and get paid for it. He plays this shameless game almost in every administration that does not put him on a robust payroll. For those who know, Bayelsa State is the most transparent State in Nigeria, where every kobo is spent with value for money.

It is not surprising that Richard Kpodoh issued a statement on the use of Paris Club Fund, which seems to indict Governors. One may see nothing wrong in his statement that the bailout fund should be judiciously utilized. Everything is wrong about Richard Kpodoh’s statement.

First he operates under an unregistered name tagged Concerned Bayelsa Indigenes. Secondly, Kpodoh contradicted

himself by saying that the States received huge allocations yet they could not meet the financial obligations. If the States received huge financial allocations, why did the Federal Government release the “Paris Club Funds”? It was the asphyxiated , suffocating economy occasioned by the collapse of the price of crude oil coupled with the horrible Forex regime that necessitated the release of the “Paris Club Funds” in the first place. Kpodoh’s memory is so short to remember that this was not the case before the ascending of the Buhari Administration.

Richard Kpodoh’s allusion to Bayelsa State and the unpaid wage bill is the greatest fraud in his ill-fated motive to the Golgotha of a depraved enclave. Only a man suffering from amnesia that will undermine the concerted efforts made by the Restoration Administration on her efforts to save money and to pay civil servants regularly in the State.

In fact, before 2016, Bayelsa State occupied the front seat in the payment of workers’ salaries. The State inherited more than N257 billions from the government – where he was Security Adviser. Loan repayment was rescheduled; massive investment was made in all sectors, especially education, health and infrastructure. If Bayelsa State has not reached her Eldorado it is because the State was in large measure bogged down by the cobweb of frivolous loans and other fraudulent so much money is used to service the loans his administration, so callously owed with nothing to show for it.

Governor Henry Seriake Dickson is determined more than ever, to clear the backlog of loans but while this is on-going, the administration is also fighting hard to exorcize the ghost workers syndrome, clean-up the vouchers and pay only the active work force in the State. The “Ghost Workers” and the “Payroll Fraud” are some of the legacies of the Sylva administration.

It is cheap blackmail for Mr. Richard Kpodoh to claim that he or other Bayelsans for that matter, could not reach the Governor when recently, he invented a platform called CONTRIMANDIRECT, with dedicated lines to reach the Governor on phone; email and twitter. We have openly declared that people should blow the whistle against payroll fraud, Ghost workers and double employment.

Finally, Governor Seriake Dickson, true to his inaugural address, has been faithful in organizing the “Monthly Transparency Briefing” which keeps the citizens up to speed with monies accruing to the State and how such monies are spent. It is therefore ludicrous for Kpodoh to allude to Bayelsa State in the expenditure of the “Paris Club Fund.”

While we know that Kpodoh is a psychotic personality, it is even worse that the unedifying activities of the man have lacerated his moral ligament and he is now a harbinger of cheap blackmail. Richard Kpodoh – an archetype of Goebbels might have just woken-up from his stupor before writing these bad verses. His cheap blackmail is stiff, stale and sterile trick and one only urge him to invent another. One thing is clear, Richard Kpodoh is a black leg in the Ijaw nation.

Barr. Osaro Ehighie

Secretary

Comrade Rose Okpe

P.R.O