By Charles Obi Odili
Our attention has been drawn to a report in a little known online publication accusing the Interim Management Committee of squandering N200 billion on payment for fake contracts in the past two months. This story is classical fake news as the Commission has not paid out any such amount, even for genuine contracts, not to talk of fake ones.
The total payments made by the Interim Management Committee in the past two months is about N22 billion. This covers payments to vendors and suppliers like hotels, and contractors, especially those owed N50 million and below. The total funds available to the Commission in the past three months is N33 billion, a rather distant cry from the humongous amount quoted by the report. Since the Commission cannot pay what it does not have, it beats the imagination where these merchants of falsehood cooked their figures from.
While the Commission, as public spirited organisation, welcomes intense media scrutiny, it abhors fake news peddled by online publications whose interests have nothing to do with the common good.
We call on our stakeholders to ignore these reports.
