Lagos workers, commissioner differ on cooperative deductions

Okorocha denies illegal transfer of N1.2b
With less than four months to the end of his tenure as the governor of Lagos State, Akinwunmi Ambode is being accused by some civil servants of deliberately withholding cooperative deductions from their salaries.

Over 30 cooperative societies operating within Lagos ministries, agencies and parastatals were reportedly affected.“As I am talking to you, the account of the cooperatives have not been credited for two months – December and January,” an assistant director who was aware of the issue told The Guardian.

“Even November remittances came late.”The Guardian checks revealed that the cooperative funds held by the state government run into billions of naira.A cooperative executive said the coop with the least amount of money has about ₦3 million from deductions of its members’ salaries.

We learnt that deductions from November 2018 were only remitted this month. The Commissioner for Information, Kehinde Bamigbetan, confirmed the report to The Guardian.

“My investigation indicates that we remitted November. I am trying to get information on December and January,” he added.The commissioner argued that the delay in budget approval could be responsible for the delay in remittance.

In a related development, Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State has denied the allegation by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), governorship candidate in the state, Emeka Ihedioha, that he stashed away N1.2 billion into an unnamed account for illegal salaries. Ihedioha’s Campaign organisation’s spokesperson, Kissinger Ikeokwu, in a statement on Wednesday, had accused Okorocha of indulging in such three months to the end of his eight-year rule.

But Okorocha, yesterday described Ihedioha and his group as “professional alarmists”, who required to prove their claim by mentioning the names and other details where the governor made the transfer.”

The statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Sam Onwuemeodo, reads: “Chief Emeka Ihedioha and his disjointed group deserve an award for being professional alarmists, as they do it without caution. Having seen that he has missed the guber train for the second time, they have gone haywire.”

The governor, who is the Imo West (Orlu) senatorial candidate under the All Progressives Congress (APC), also accused Ihedioha of not accounting for billions of naira he allegedly got for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) projects and constituency projects during his reign as the deputy speaker of the House of Representatives.