Rivers PDP flays Amaechi over LG caretaker committees •Calls for probe of outgone chairmen

Rivers State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has faulted the state governor, Honourable Rotimi Amaechi, for setting up caretaker committees to replace 21 local government chairmen in the state, whose tenure expired last Saturday. The governor had, on Saturday, dissolved 21 out of the 23 local government councils in the state, just as he later in the day sworn-in caretaker committee members for the affected local councils, after they had been screened by the state House of Assembly. However, Rivers PDP chairman, Mr Felix Obuah, in a statement issued by his media aide in Port Harcourt on Monday, described the governor’s action as unconstitutional. He said Amaechi’s decision to put in place a caretaker arrangement, instead of a council election, was borne fear of losing to the PDP, “knowing fully well that the Rivers State is basically a PDP state.” The party chairman also queried the essence of setting up and sustaining the state electoral body, the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC), when it cannot be allowed to perform its statutory function. Accusing the former council chairmen of financial waywardness and running their offices aground, PDP said it was not enough to sack them, but that they should be made to give account of how they spent the huge resources allocated to them in the past three years. The probe, PDP said became necessary, as it alleged that the monies given to them for development purposes, had no visible evidence of the expected investments in any of the councils. The party also recalled allegations of financial donations and illegal contributions by the council chairmen to allegedly aid the pet project of the governor’s wife, the Empowerment Support Initiative (ESI), noting that neither Amaechi nor his wife, Judith, had denied the allegation till date. “To prove his persistent claim of running a transparent government, PDP, therefore, wants Amaechi, as a matter of urgent public interest, initiate probe into these serious and other sundry allegations of misappropriation of council funds against these outgoing council chairmen,” the statement read.