Abia owns equity in Aba power plant – Geometric management

Management of Geometric Power Plant, Aba, Abia State, has cleared the air over the controversy surrounding Abia State government’s alleged five per cent equity stake in the project.

Spokesman of Aba Power Limited, Mr Chijioke Ogbodo, in a statement, said the Abia State government has “three and a half per cent equity” in the $800 million power plant.

Ogbodo spoke against the background of the controversy between  aides of former Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, and the incumbent Governor, Alex Otti, over the actual equity stake of the state government in the project, contradicting their earlier statement of “no equity for Abia State government” in the plant.

Recall that the immediate past Commissioner for Trade and Investment, Chief John Okiyi Kalu, had claimed in a statement that Ikpeazu’s administration invested five per cent equity in the project.

Governor Otti’s Media Adviser, Mr Ferdinand Ekeoma, had said that the incumbent governor has no evidence before him to authenticate the claims.

He had said, “At this point, we do not have any document, any information. Of course the former government did not submit any document to us upon which we would base whatever comment we are going to make. So, as long as we do not have any document, what it implies is that to the best of our knowledge, such does not exist.

“We have heard from the spokespersons of the former government, who claimed that there was an agreement. Of course, we have been told that the state invested $5 million in Geometric, which gave the state five per cent equity in the project; now from what I read and I believe others read a few days ago, the former Commissioner for Information still repeated the same claim, but this time around, they claimed that the whole money was not paid, that certain amount of money was paid; and I think that formed the basis for the Chairman of Geometric to have said what he said a few days ago, because if there was an agreement or may be a verbal agreement that a certain amount of money would be invested and which will give you the platform to have the said equity and you did not fulfill your own side of the agreement, it would be assumed that it never happened.

“As a government, we will actually be happy to see that something was invested, that we are inheriting something from these people; that we have a stake; but I am saying there is no document to prove it. And if you started a process with these people and you refuse to keep your own side of the bargain, you have given such people the opportunity to say nothing exists, you do not have any stake. So, that is the situation. We wouldn’t want anybody to say that we are trying to dismiss whatever claims the former government may be making, but we are saying we would need to have evidence.”