You thrive on lies, your open letter misleading – Governor Ikpeazu fires back at Otti

The Abia state government has replied the open letter written to Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, by the 2015 governorship candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance in the state, Alex Otti, on the inability of the government to clear backlogs of salaries and arrears owed to the state civil servant.

Alex Otti, 2015 governorship candidate of All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, in Abia state, had written a letter to the Abia state governor, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, and accused him of insensitivity to the plight of workers in the state.

The government responded in a letter written by the State Commissioner for Information, John Okiyi Kalu on Saturday.

It described Otti’s open letter to the governor, as misleading and deceptive, accusing him of thriving on lies to score cheap political points, ahead of 2019 general elections in the country.

The Abia government wrote,”Permit me to inform you that Governor Ikpeazu is busy with the work of developing Abia State and will not be personally responding to your desperate ploy to distract him from the task of leading Abia to prosperity. While you continue to occupy space on Facebook, he is facing the work Abians elected him to do.

“Your open letter is, therefore, another attempt to mislead and deceive people who may not be aware of your brand of politics that thrives on lies, half-truths and plain deceit.

“We are aware that your principal reason for attempting to scuttle that facility was to prevent the Ikpeazu administration from delivering on its infrastructure renewal agenda and maintain a healthy cash flow that will ensure that our people continue to march forward even with the recession that hit the nation’s economy.

The Abia government also rubbished the statement by Otti that it was owing ten months salary arrears of civil servants in the state.

“Your statement that “Abia Civil Servants are presently owed up to ten months salary arrears” is typically expected from those that source, bandy and form an opinion from information shared at Facebook and other online social media platforms.

“All workers in Abia State Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA) have long received their May 2018 salaries and were set to receive June 2018 salary but for the impasse that led to the failure of the federation account allocation committee (FAAC) to disburse June Revenue due to Abia State and others.

“It is important to note that workers in our MDAs constitute more than 70% of the state’s workforce.

“I hope you understand that statutorily, Abia State Government does not pay the wages of workers in state parastatals as they are permitted to generate and use revenue to pay their workers and run their operations. In situations where some parastatals have challenges with fund generation, the state government lends support with subventions.

“As much as possible, this administration has supported our parastatals, hence Abia State University Uturu which hitherto had salary payment challenges is up to date with workers salary. For others such as Abia State Polytechnic Aba, we have made interventions to support them; including offsetting the debilitating commercial bank loan of two billion Naira as well as with payment of monthly subventions.

“As a responsible government, we will not allow any institution to constitute itself into a leaking pocket or drain pipe on the collective wealth of Abians.”