Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State has expressed his disappointment over alleged theft of government assets during the last days of his administration.
POLITICS NIGERIA reports that the governor made this known while administering the oath of office to Udiba Udiba as the Commissioner for Assets Management and Martins Osibe as a Commissioner in the Cross River Civil Service Commission at the State Executive Chamber of the Governor’s Office in Calabar.
During the event, Ayade also announced the disbandment of the state’s Scraps Metal Regulatory Agency, which he accused of engaging in unscrupulous activities. He further stated that the office of the Commissioner for Assets Management has the mandate to document every asset owned by the state.
He said, “This office has the responsibility to document every single asset that belongs to this state.”
“Cross River has a very sad story regarding assets remittances. Our assets have often been taken away because we do not have inventory of them.
“In this time and age, people still see government assets as nobody’s assets. As government is winding down, they convert official cars and change number plates and hide the cars from government.
“Some people move from one Ministry to the other taking government assets. They disappear with assets and take them away,” he rued.
Speaking further, the governor disclosed that, “government vehicles are disappearing. If a vehicle has a small dent and it is sent to mechanic workshop, they will disappear from there. Government will buy official vehicles that are functional and somebody will seize them and say it is scrap.
“We must have an asset register for the state, indicating that if you go to Obudu for instance, this particular building belongs to Ministry of Agriculture, this particular land belongs to the state and it is a property of the Cross River State government.”
He berated the disbanded Scrap Metal Agency for illegally pilfering government assets, including dumpsters and labelling them as scraps.
“I hear a particular Agency called Scrap Metal Agency Regulatory Agency is going around causing problems, seizing everything saying they are scraps.
“Let me use this responsibility to announce that the Scrap Metal Regulatory Agency is hereby scrapped. The Agency will no longer exist because it will now come under Asset Management Ministry,” Ayade added.
