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Ebonyi State government, yesterday, said information circulating in the airwaves regarding Nelson Onyeme and four other engineers hired by Nelan Consulting firm to work in phase two of the African Development Bank (ADB) sponsored section of Abakaliki Ring Road Project are a misrepresentation of the facts.
Commissioner for Information and State Orientation, Orji Uchenna Orji, in a statement said Nelan Consulting firm had yet to mobilise to site and had only been issued their award letters.
He said the firm was supposed to work just eight days per month for the 24 months period the project was scheduled but that it never showed its presence at the project site till the day of the incident. He also said the missing engineers were not on the list of employees submitted to the state government by Nelan Consultants.
“For the records, Ebonyi State government and the personnel executing the contract job were never contacted or informed about the coming of the officials of Nelan Consulting Firm on that day. The state government had a meeting with all companies/ contractors involved in the Abakaliki Ring Road project over the security situation in a few points within the project locations. Nelan Consulting firm is merely a supervising firm whose job supervision commitment was going to be eight days per month in the whole of 24 months project duration. The resident engineer and main contractor being supervised by Nelan Consulting firm have never shown presence till this moment. All we gathered from the security report after the ugly incident was that it was the contractor, Marco Nigeria Ltd that had contacted Mr. Nelson Onyeme to go to the site.”
He wondered why the engineers went to the site unaccompanied contrary to an agreement reached with the stakeholders.
He described the information being circulated by Mrs. Nelson Onyeme as misleading and alleged that some politicians were using her to discredit the state government.
“We are constrained to correct certain impressions contained in the information dished out to the public by Mrs. Nelson Onyeme. We know that she spoke out of emotions and we believe that some politicians have also taken advantage of her state of mind, otherwise there were things that she said against the state government that were unnecessarily misleading.”
He accused one Mr. Benjamin Nzeagwu, an engineer with Nelan of speaking from both sides of his mouth by telling the Ebonyi State government one thing and the public another thing.
