The ₦30 billion spent on a 10.2-kilometre dual carriageway recently inaugurated in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State capital, has pitched the Labour Party’s guber candidate, Udengs Eradiri, against Governor Douye Diri.
Mr Eradiri had criticised Mr Diri for using ₦30 billion to rehabilitate the road that had been substantially finished by the previous administrations in Bayelsa.
Mr Eradiri’s query was how the state’s current administration spent ₦30 billion to complete a road inherited at an advanced state of completion.
“This is outrageous and shows a lack of prudency with public funds by the Diri-led administration,” Mr Eradiri said.
But Daniel Alabrah, the chief press secretary to Mr Diri, responded, saying that Mr Eradiri lied because he was seeking to score cheap political points.
Mr Eradiri had appealed to the state governor to address the facts around prudence, accountability, and transparency he raised in the road project.
His questions in Yenagoa were in response to Mr Diri’s statement criticising him for telling the public that the governor spent ₦30 billion to construct the 10.2-km phase two Glory Drive Road in Yenagoa, amounting to ₦3 billion per kilometre.
Mr Eradiri alleged that Mr Diri dissipated his energy, calling him a liar without justifying “the bogus figure.”
“Diri should come clean on the cost of all his projects,” he said, alleging that the cost of the projects is usually shrouded in secrecy.
“I challenge him to publish the costs of some of his projects because it is the people’s money, and the people deserve to know,” he said.
At the inauguration of the road project recently, Mr Diri put the cost of the 10.2- km road at N30 billion.
(NAN)
