How Clem Agba, Minister of State for Budget defrauded Edo State of N30bn has been raging
OpenLife Nigeria has gathered that Clem Agba, Minister of State for Budget and National Planning may have done a substandard job during his time as Commissioner for Environment in Edo State.
During the period, a drainage project that was designed to ensure erosion free Benin metropolis gulped about N30 billion.
But at the moment, physical evidence of such spending seems obvious to none, a development that has prompted governor Godwin Obaseki to raise concern.
Accordingly, the governor is pointing accusing fingers on Clem Agba for his role in supervising the N30bn Benin City storm water project, which the governor said was conceived to defraud Edo people.
The governor, who said this while inspecting the Textile Mill Road catchment of the project, noted that the project was touted to have drafted experts for its design, who were supervised by Agba, but the project was eventually not designed to drain water from the erosion-infested areas of the capital city, Benin.
Clem Agba was the Commissioner for Environment and Public Utilities and supervised the project during the administration of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, when the phase 1 of the storm water project was conceived and executed.
According to the governor, “The person who supervised this project, today, calls himself a Minister and is supervising bigger projects for the Federal Government. This is just unacceptable.
“What we are doing now is different from what was done in the last administration. There is almost a two-meter difference. So, there is no way that you can drain water from a low ground to a high plane.”
He added that the state government spent N30 billion in the last administration claiming to want to take away the people’s sufferings, but the project was not designed to meet that purpose.
“The storm water project was a fraud. It was a contract to defraud Edo people. From what I see in this catchment area, the project was never designed to take water away from the area. The area was never drained,” he said.
The governor stressed that the storm water project was designed not to work for the benefit of Edo people, insisting that his administration will probe the project and recover all the money stolen through it.
Attempts to get response from the Minister was not successfully as his MTN number available to OpenLife Nigeria was switched off even as we are waiting for response on how Clem Agba managed the environment portfolio.
Clem Agba who hails from Auchi, Edo North senatorial district was a top executive in Chevron before Adams Oshiomhole hired him to manage the environment ministry in Edo.
He resigned and returned to Chevron where he was later picked as a minister by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The 56 years old technocrat graduated from Bendel State University, now Ambrose Alli University in 1985.
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