'I didn't buy private jets with your salaries', Okorocha tells striking Imo workers

Governor Rochas Okorocha has denied allegations by striking Imo state civil servants that he bought private jets with their money.

 According to the Governor, the jets bought by the governor were the ones auctioned during former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration. Organised labour on Tuesday shut down socio-economic activities in the state, accusing government of using state fund to purchase private aircraft, while it owed civil servants and pensioners’ backlog of salary arrears, National Mirror reports. The workers said the government should sell off the jets and use the proceeds to settle their salaries. But reacting to the allegation, the state government through a statement signed by Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Sam Onwuemeodo, said such falsehood had been the stock in trade in some quarters, adding that there was no truth in the allegation.


                        “Therefore, as a government, we want to deny with high sense of honesty that since May 29, 2011 when Owelle Rochas Okorocha became governor, he has never bought any private jet either directly or through any proxy. “The government challenged those behind the allegation to make their facts public to fault their denial,” he said. However, the government said the period Governor Okorocha bought jets was years before his becoming governor, during the Olusegun Obasanjo administration when some of the Presidential Jets were auctioned. “The governor bought jets then under the aegis of Lamonde Aviation, alongside few other Nigerians. Since he became governor, he has never bought any private Jet,” the statement stated.
 The government also cleared the air on the issue of debts status of the state, saying that the Debt Management Office, DMO, recent publication of states and their respective debt profiles penultimate week had vindicated the government. According to the statement, Imo State only owed N37bn, which it said was far from the hundreds of billions the opponents of the government have been claiming to be the debt status of the state.

 The statement described the claim of the labour leaders that government owes the civil servants, teachers and local government workers three months arrears of salaries as false. “This is not true. The government has paid civil servants, teachers and local government workers up to the month of June. The government has not also sold any of the parastatals as falsely claimed. We stand to be challenged on all these.

 “The government also observed that some people in the state and some media houses have been relying on that development to be blackmailing the governor and the government by publishing glaring falsehood against them,”

 the statement added.