The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has asked the former governor of Imo state, Rochas Okorocha to get ready for his days in court while revealing that about N7.9bn belonging to the state has been seized from him.
According to the Zonal head of the anti-graft agency, Usman Imam who made this known on Thursday, the commission has returned over N5.7bn to various administrations in Imo to pay salaries and pensions of workers.
He said: “I started the Imo state case in Enugu and upon my deployment to this zone, the investigations of corruption allegations against the former Governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha, was transferred from the Enugu zone to Port Harcourt for further investigations.
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“Within the period, the commission succeeded in freezing about in different accounts. All the monies that were released to Imo State government were from the N7.9bn recovered from Okorocha. The monies were released in batches.
“N2.7bn was released in March for salaries. In the PDP government of Emeka Ihedioha, excess of N2.5bn upon series of writings and our insistence of monitoring it was released to pay salaries and pensions because they were monies recovered from the state so it has to go back to the state.
“Then the government of Emeka left and this government came, we had a remnant of the money in excess of N2bn. We were able to release N514milion just last month because excess of about N1.8bn is encumbered with a court process. Contractors went to court and targeted the funds. The process is lingering. They still have excess of N1.8bn that is not released”.
