The Empowerment Support Initiative (ESI), the pet project of the wife of the Rivers State Governor, Dame Judith Amaechi is a big blow to the administration of the twenty three (23) Local Government Areas of the state.
This weekly reliably gathered that the sponsorship of the Governor’s wife ESI is squarely on the council’s treasuries.
The council chairmen are being tasked for the sustainability of the ESI, on monthly basis. Any chairman who fail to comply will face the wrath of the Governor.
This was one of the basic reasons, why Rt. Hon. Evans Bipi and other lawmakers moved for the impeachment of Rt. Hon. Otelemaba Dan Amachree as the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly in July 9, 2013.
In a petitioned entitled, “The Political Crisis In Rivers State House of Assembly”, written by Hon. Evans Bipi and forwarded to the Senate President, Rt. Hon. David Mark, the petitioner alleged that the Governor and his wife use public fund in the name of constituency projects to sponsor ESI. According to him, council chairmen were compelled by the Governor and his wife to pay the sum of money amount to N35,000,000.00 (Thirty Five Million Naira) each to the ESI project.
Sources informed this weekly that the current Caretaker Committee Chairmen are complaining bitterly as they were forced to withdraw funds from the councils’ confers to fund Dame Judith Amaechi’s ESI project.
One of the CTC chairmen in the Ijaw speaking LGAs in the state told our political correspondent that, the council chairmen were not happy with the Governor and his wife for compelling them to sponsor the ESI project.
“Afterall, we have a lot of projects to be executed at the grassroots level and we have been compelled to sponsor ESI project that cannot be sustained after 2015 general election. Amaechi and his wife should leave us alone, so that we can face our people in the rural communities’, the CTC chairman said.
He further told this publication that more that N1bn has been voted by the councils to sponsor the ESI project, which he described as an attempt to thwart development in the local areas. ###
