The Bayelsa State government yesterday denied the claim that it paid the Chinese construction firm, Civil Engineering and Construction Company (CCECC) the sum of N3.4billion for bush clearing for the Yenagoa-Oporoma road project and procurement of vehicles for top government officials in the state.

While the state government argued that the estimated cost of the road project was fixed at N31billion and N3billion released for mobilisation to site, the procurement of vehicle at a cost of N403million was not for some purported top government functionaries but to the pool of the State Protocol Service.

The state government in a statement signed by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr. Daniel Markson-Iworiso, stated that every bid for the contract was submitted along with other firms and passed through the tender process, including due-process scrutiny and assessment. He said that the contract awarded to CCECC was for the entire road and site clearing was never awarded as a separate contract as was reported.

On the procurement of official vehicles at the sum of N403million, the state government denied that the vehicles were for some certain top government functionaries saying " the present administration did not spend N403 million to buy vehicles for top government functionaries as was also reported. The vehicles in question are actually meant for the State Protocol Services to be established soon by the State Government and not top government functionaries."

Meanwhile, the Korea International Corporation Agency (KOICA) has donated a N70 million worth of rice milling machines to the Bayelsa State government.

Receiving the machines at the Government House, Governor Seriake Dickson assured that government would put the rice milling equipment into effective use.

In his response, the chief representative of the Korean Agency in Nigeria, Jung Sang Hoon, said, "the five, 300 gramme per hour millers worth over N70 million were donated in view of the devastating effects of the flood that must have damaged the existing rice milling machines in the state."