EXCLUSIVE: Committee Links Over 250 Bank Accounts To Former Governor Ayade 

By Victor UDU

Shocking revelations have continued to emerge from the Cross River Transition Committee as over 250 bank accounts have been allegedly linked to immediate past administration of Ben Ayade.

Facts emanating from the committee's seating revealed that some of these accounts, stuffed with funds accruing from government financial transactions, were operated by some individuals in their private capacity and were never accounted for.

The Otu-led administration is still perplexed at these revelations from the committee which was set up to organize a smooth take off of the new administration.

The committee found out that throughout the eight years of Ayade there was no proper accounting system as most of his aides, close associates and family members collected government revenues in the name of consultancy and paid it into their different accounts.

Most of these accounts had hundreds of millions of Naira lodgement. 

In view of the above revelations, the committee recommended a Single Treasury Account for the state to forestall further leakages and correct these illegalities that were common feature of the immediate past administration.

The committee frowned at these anomalies, which in its view, have been largely responsible for the looting and squandering of government resources without anyone being held accountable.

Information available to The Beagle News said the absence of accountability has made it difficult for the new administration to reconcile figures or even find proper records because they were not kept in many instances.

An inside source told The Beagle News that the internally generated revenue running into several billions of Naira cannot be accounted for as this was what was largely abused and lodged in these accounts.

The poor and abysmal performance of the Ayade-led government is associated with these kind of practices and if the new government would make progress it has to simply turn blind eye to financial transactions of the last administration, the source advised.

Another concerned Cross Riverian, Augustine Eba, said the committee's recommendations were also tailored towards the adoption of the Single Treasury Account to curb the abuse, improve on accountability, enhance record keeping and make government business open in accordance with international best standards.

It's unclear what further steps this administration is going to take on this issues as government officials are not ready to discuss the problem, some claiming to be civil servants and others saying they need the express approval of the Governor to make any comments. 

However, The Beagle News gathered that the administration is taking time to make further investigation in other not to make mistakes because the matter is weighty.

Meanwhile, efforts made to reach the committee leadership to confirm these allegations have not yielded any results .