Governor Alex Otti of Abia State contracted a firm to audit the government's finances between 29 May 2015 and 28 May 2023, apparently to investigate alleged looting of the government's resources by his predecessor, Okezie Ikpeazu.
A former governor of Abia State, Okezie Ikpeazu, has reacted to a revelation that N1.9 trillion was allegedly taken illegally from the treasury of the State Government under his administration.
PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported on Saturday how a forensic audit report showed that a total of N1.9 trillion was allegedly taken away illegally from the treasury of the state government between May 2015 and May 2023.
KPMG International Nigeria Limited, an auditing firm, prepared the report which was released last month.
The administration of the incumbent Governor of the south-eastern state, Alex Otti, contracted the firm to carry out the audit of the state government's finances during the eight-year tenure of Mr Ikpeazu.
This newspaper summed all funds allegedly earmarked for projects or taken from the state government's accounts without due process within the period under review as indicated in the report.
Ikpeazu speaks
But reacting in a statement forwarded to PREMIUM TIMES on Monday, Mr Ikpeazu faulted both the newspaper's publication and the audit report.
In the right of reply authored by Michael Nwabueze, the ex-governor's former media aide, Mr Ikpeazu described the newspaper's publication as "misleading" and "more classically maliciously libellous."
He said the newspaper ought to know that in the eight years of his tenure as governor, the state did not earn up to N1 trillion from all sources including federal allocations, internally Generated Revenue IGR) and grants.
Mr Ikpeazu said Abia State under his watch earned a total of N630 billion, citing data from the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) and National Bureau of Statistics as reportedly published by Statisense.
The former governor queried how the N1.9 trillion could have been diverted under his administration, claiming the author of the story failed to do "diligent review" of the audit report.
'Documents incomplete'
Speaking on the audit report, Mr Ikpeazu also said the auditing firm "relied on documents supplied by Abia State Government and might not have seen other documents to the contrary."
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He stressed that, contrary to claims by Governor Otti, what the audit firm did was a process review and not a forensic audit.
He criticised PREMIUM TIMES for going ahead with the story despite the fact that the audit report contained caveats that "called for caution on interpretation, application and against use of the report as an instrument of indictment against anyone."
The report
However, in the report criticised by Mr Ikpeazu, PREMIUM TIMES only tallied all funds queried in the 359-page audit report.
Such funds included funds from loans, federal allocations, internally generated revenues and grants.
The report also queried sources of funds such as deductions, withdrawals, allocations, payments and borrowings which allegedly violated the relevant state's laws regulating such actions.
This newspaper did not have access to records which the audit report relied on, hence, did not carry out an independent investigation of the issues thrown up in it.
