No one can prove I stole Rivers State money – Former governor, Rotimi Amaechi says

Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi, has denied allegations that he embezzled
money meant for the development of Rivers state when he was governor. Amaechi said
this while speaking at a stakeholders’ forum on corruption organised by the Federal
Ministry of Justice in Abuja today July 28th.
“If you had followed the Rivers State government when I was governor, we were the
first state to introduce the Public Procurement Law in the country. The state cabinet
used to call the Director General of Public Procurement in the state as an alternative
governor, that they wanted an amendment to that law. The reason they wanted
amendment is that he (DG) refused to increase the threshold to one hundred million
naira, per ministry, instead he reduced it to 10 million naira. I had a battle with him
(DG BPE) and the world bank who insisted that we should not go for an amendment
but should persuade him to increase the threshold. I remember the cabinet tried to
go to court against him and I remember that he was also trying to go to court
against Commissioners. In fact, the procurement DG wrote a memo that I felt was
very incriminating requesting that since the law requires the governor to take any
commissioner who doesn’t comply with the public procurement law to court, I should
please take the commissioner of education to court for not complying… Everybody in
the cabinet felt that he was an alternative governor, they felt that he was slowing the
process,” he said.
Mr. Amaechi said transparency in the use of public funds was key to his
administration as governor, and that the Rivers community was fully briefed
periodically on how funds were being utilised.
“Within that period we insisted on engaging the indigenous communities on how
much we received and how we spent the money. That is why I feel that after this
ministerial appointment, I should do everything possible to stay away from
government because in spite of all the forms of transparency I introduced in
government, one man could begin to tell lies to Nigerians and Nigerians believe him.
The governor of Rivers State said I squandered N3 trillion naira. I did not receive up
to N1.8 trillion naira as governor both from IGR and funds from federal allocation. So,
how could I have squandered money I did not even receive in the first place? You can
see the politics of lies and lies. As Minister of Transportation, I run an open and
transparent system. I believe in name and shame. What name and shame does is, if
you name and shame those of them who don’t have conscience they won’t come to
public functions. I do have conscience. In fact, it was the word corruption that
brought me to this occasion because I wanted to see who will get up and say to me,
‘this is evidence that you are corrupt. We went to court against the Rivers State
government on their allegation of corruption against me. The Court of Appeal said,
produce that document that found this man (Amaechi) guilty of those crimes and up
till today he (Wike) has not produced it,” he said