Managing Director of Cross River State Water Board Limited, Chief Victor Ekpo Effiom
PATRICK ABANG, Calabar –
The Managing Director of Cross River State Water Board Limited, Chief Victor Ekpo Effiom, has denied the rumour making the rounds that some chemicals were allegedly stolen from the organisation.
Chief Ekpo’s reaction came following reports that the police apprehended some people in possession of stolen chemicals.
NATIONAL ACCORD reports that The State Police Commissioner, Aminu Alhassan had on Tuesday paraded 31 suspects at the command for commiting various offences.
Among the suspects were two persons who were in possession of chemicals belonging to the water board.
Ekpo who spoke alongside other management staff of the organisation on Wednesday said the management duly sold the chemicals to Anngood Global Investment Nigerian Ltd
He said the sale of the chemicals is a management decision and was aimed at helping to defray some running costs in the organisation.
Ekpo said: “The said chemicals belongs to the Cross River State Water Board Limited.
“We have some pressing needs like payment of NEPA Bills and our energy consumption for calabar sub station alone is over 16 million naira monthly.
“This is to settle our bills and some other needs so we can still be in business as a business entity”, he said.
Speaking further, he said as a business entity, they were supposed to use the chemicals to treat water, sell it and then pay back the money to the contractor.
He said following the breakdown of a number of pumps and paucity of funds to fix them, management decided to sell the chemicals to pay back some of the debts.
He said the contractor has earlier petitioned the EFCC and they were invited for questions on the 26th July, 2021 through their letter with reference CR:3000/EFCC/UYO/EG/TB/VOL.2/124.