Posted by Governor Alex Otti has come under fire from John Kalu, the former Commissioner for Information, Trade, and Investment in the administration of former Abia State Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, for his remarks regarding the previous administration’s $3.56 million investment in Aba Geometric Power.
This was said by Kalu in a statement on Friday.
Otti questioned in a recent interview with Channels Television what Ikpeaze done with the funds borrowed while he was in office.
In response to Otti’s statement, Kalu asserted that a portion of the borrowed funds included the $3.56 million that the previous government had spent in Aba Geometric Power and that former Minister of Power Barth Nnaji owed.
He mentioned that on February 28, 2024, Nnaji wrote Otti a letter confirming the investment.
The investment, he said, was in the note that was turned over to Otti’s administration on May 29, 2023.
“I’ve come across a statement attributed to Governor Alex Otti via his spokesperson, stating that his government received a letter from Prof. Barth Nnaji, Chairman/CEO of Geometric Power, stating that the Okezie Ikpeazu administration paid at least $3.56 million to acquire shares in the company for the Abia State people.
“I have also seen in private the correspondence between Professor Barth Nnaji and Governor Alex Otti dated February 28, 2024, in which he verified that the former Abia State Government, under the direction of Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, had purchased a 3.5% stake in Geometric Power.
“It must be noted that the government brought this public odium upon itself, even though it is free to rigmarole to minimize the damage to its battered lying machinery,” he stated.
But Kalu did not go into detail about how his principal used all of the loaned funds while he was in charge.
Remember that the 188 megawatt Aba Geometric Power Plant, the nation’s first privately owned, independent, and integrated power plant, was just put into service with the potential to provide the city with electricity around-the-clock.
In the meantime, there has been debate concerning the current and past Abia state administrations’ contributions to the project.